


Runes of Resonance

by 221BCecil, asinineRainbows, dasheranne



Series: Runes of Resonance [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:36:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221BCecil/pseuds/221BCecil, https://archiveofourown.org/users/asinineRainbows/pseuds/asinineRainbows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasheranne/pseuds/dasheranne
Summary: Follow the tales ofCharity TidebearerOlivine SaltbringerClancyandMilo Mizraim





	1. Validation

Being back home felt like it had recharged Her. The procession to the castle had been very chaotic, due to her eagerness. The run had been long but if anything every step had only excited her more. She had been happily received by her parents, able to take a long bath to soothe the aches and stiffness hopping and fighting between planes had given her. She had spoken frankly with her parents, discussed both the possibility of an upcoming war, the revelation that there was a traitor in their house, and the proof she had obtained to validate all the stories her grandmother had told her in her youth. The August Wizard was real. She had been real and now Milo, along with her friends, were on the mission of finishing something she had been unable to do. Her parents had had the graciousness to look abashed as she showed them the mark now emblazoned on her chest. She would not be the only one visiting Safiya soon. 

Once they had made to go find her friends, she only felt more pride, when her parents saw that not only had they found the traitor, but had her and a lackey well in hand. Her mother had beamed at them, while her father handled the logistics that would ensure his spitfire wife and even more fiery daughter did not take justice into their own hands.

 

Everyone was invited to eat to their hearts content, to bathe and relax, before their perilous journey to the feywilds the next morning. Milo had not seen much of her friends during that night. Having visited her sister and brother had taken up most of the night, and she fell asleep closer to the rising of the sun, rather than the previous setting of it.

When the others and her reconvened she informed them that she wanted to see her grandmother before she left, and they allowed her that, choosing to go and find the masked man who had warned them of Beryl's lack of character the day before. It had not been her favorite idea, worried that her friends might come under attack again with her none the wiser for it until it was too late, but she could not very well stop them. This was at the moment, the only place her friends were free from the public fear or arrest. 

She had given Olivine a stone, just in case, before making her way to the family mausoleum, sunflower and tea candle in hand. It was bright outside, and the air was sweet. But inside it was pitch black, Runes glowing faintly and unraveling as she lit a torch to guide her, stopping at the second most recent addition. Setting the flowers down, she lit the candle, setting it down on a small sliding shelf attached to the plot, before kneeling and giving a small prayer.

Formalities done, Milo took a shaky breath, and gave the stone a teary smile. Nothing greeted her in return. The words Safiya Mizraim staring back as though to question why she had come.

"Hello Grandmother..I'm here. I'm home. Not for very long, unfortunately. My friends and I just had to stop and regroup, before we go to the feywilds. " She stopped, as if waiting for a laugh and a comment about how her parents would not approve. Neither came. "Yep. Going to the feywilds...to see the Arch Fey Ellyllon. Apparently she was Lyras partner? Oh, and I'm pretending to be Lyra? Or at least, her reincarnated form, while guided by some servant of hers who's probably gonna try to kill us later.. It has been a wild few months.." Milo laughed a bit, feeling almost manic, before dropping her head against the stone.

"You would know what to do. I wouldn't have to be so afraid if you were here with me." The admission came with tears, her hands on the stone as if gripping the outer robes of a woman sending her away to a destiny she had not wanted to inherit. As if begging to take it all away from her. But nothing happened. There was only silence punctuated by pitiful sniffling.

Once it was all gone. When she had let out every bit of the pain and fear she had inside her, she straightened, wiping her eyes. Looking directly at the tomb, Milo smiled again, calmer this time. "Im sure youre ready to tell me enough of that. Tears never solved anything, right?" Brushing herself off, as if to leave all the worry in the dead air, Milo gave a firm nod. "Dad will be here soon. He owes you an apology. Ive got to go now, though. They're probably waiting. Ill come home again soon and tell you how I courted the ruler of the Feywilds."

Turning, Milo made her way to the exit, the solid sounds of the tomb locking behind her. 

Meeting up with her friends, she barely had time to question why Clancy had tear stains on his face and was repeatedly mumbling about apple slices, as her parents called them all to the throne room. There were satchels with fresh provisions and gold for each of them, but for a brief moment, she worried they would try to impede the next part of the journey. Instead, however, her father bowed to Charity, Clancy, and Olivine, thanking them all for keeping their daughter safe and being good friends to her, and her mother gifted each of them with a golden necklace bearing their personal family insignia. 

The procession to the gate between this world and the Wilds was much more somber, people murmuring their worries and fears for the travelers safety, people dissenting the absence of the princess so soon after her return, and for a moment, Milo hesitated.

She could stay. She had done what she had set out to do. She had proven that Safiya had been right. That The August Wizard Lyra Lunara was in fact a real person. She could stay home.

But she looked at her friends. At these people who were once strangers she planned to leave behind. At these three people(And Reyn) Who now meant so much to her she was willing to kill on their behalf.

She looked at all the people who had followed them to where they were standing. To the few who called her name. To the woman who was pointing at her and explaining who she was to her young daughter.

 

Lifting her medallion from under her collar, she watched as it glowed, the veil between growing thinner until they could cross through. 

 

Thinking of her friends. Her people. The duty to see this through to the end. To finish what Lyra started and get rid of this danger to their worlds, she felt filled with determination, and with a tentative smile and wave to those she was leaving behind, she stepped through.


	2. Saltbringer Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SO! This is an Olivine piece, written by our lovely ranger and my good friend AJ. Ive decided to kinda make this a public compendium for stories and lore we dont mind sharing with the public, about our D&D characters.
> 
> They wont be in any real order, because a lot of this may be stuff from before the group met.
> 
>  
> 
> I have already gotten to read this, and Im excited to add this to the list! Shes such an impressive writer. Her word count will forever be higher than anything I will ever post personally. (though this could be said for all the others. theyre so much more detailed than me. Im the Shang of the group)
> 
> Olivine Saltbringer Belongs to Alayna F  
> Milo Mizraim belongs to me, Shiloh S  
> Charity Tidebearer Belongs to Blair S  
> Clancy belongs to Danny C  
> Reyn, and our Adopted kids Colin and Pebble belong to Lee C

Olivine thinks about her family. 

Olivine took a moment to lean on the dresser, hands gripping the grainy, unpolished wood at the edges. She hoped that, as she’d seen others do, gripping a textured surface would allow her head to focus again. That worked, right? All her life she’d watched and imitated those around her, choosing which things she should do, or wanted to do. Somewhere in the space of her head, she realized this was normal for anyone to do. Everyone was intrinsically connected to the people around them, whether they liked it or not. They learned and grew by taking in pieces of others, in a sense. But she had never been able to shake the feeling that she was an imposter, imitating and not actually being. A smiling, sharp-toothed creature that lit up with glee whenever she could take another piece of other people’s actions or words and add it to her own internal lexicon. Gathering. Hoarding. Ruminating. Gladly spitting out the pieces that she found distasteful (for personal reasons, she never felt particularly bad about that last part). 

Her fingers dug into the wood at the edges of the dresser again, trying to keep herself from getting lost inside of a rumination. The last thing her friends and adopted children needed was to find her growling and snarling under her breath as she tried to work through a situation or a conversation that would probably never even happen. 

She grimaced as she felt a twinge of pain in her lower stomach. She woken up to a lingering feeling of frustration and this dull cramping pain. It was about time for another bleeding session, and it always made things that much more irritating to deal with both mentally and physically. In practice she was essentially no more high-strung and easily frustrated than she was normally, but that didn’t stop her from worrying every step of the way that the extra mental and physical stress was affecting her more than usual. That she would be judged unfit to be a ranger. Unfit to be a warrior. Unfit to make decisions. At least that’s what she’d always worried about when she was part of the Corvale Rangers. Things had changed on that part. 

The worst part about the bleeding was that it robbed you of your energy, and right now she needed it more than ever. Olivine winced as another cramp passed through her abdomen. As it passed, she couldn’t help but remember her first missions with the Rangers. The fear of being weak and unfit. Then she relaxed a bit as she remembered Captain Cypress.

She had secretly been so nervous about the bleeding in particular, but he had never made her feel bad about the bleeding or the pain on the road, never made a big deal out of it. He accepted it as a part of life and was understanding when she had to take a little extra time on bathroom breaks to deal with it. He’d even offered her a few suggestions on handling it during missions (cloaking the scent of blood from predators, what herbs were the best for pain relief) he’d heard about from listening to other rangers who suffered from the same monthly visitor as Olivine. There was an openness among rangers that Olivine liked, bodily functions were accepted and dealt with as a part of nature, just like everything else (to some degree). Of course, there were still plenty of male rangers that wrinkled their noses over those who they deemed “the womenfolk” bleeding while they were on hunts, but luckily Olivine hadn’t had to deal with many of those. 

That was one of Cypress’s best qualities, in Olivine’s opinion. He didn’t judge as easily, as far as she could tell. She was sure he had his own opinions about everything, and he definitely wasn’t happy about everything she did, but he always tried to listen. Panic was the enemy when you had a job to do, and he did his best to stomp it out. He had figured out long before Olivine had joined the Corvale Rangers Guild that it was better not to rip apart his subordinates for screwing up, for making mistakes while they were still learning. As long as they learned from their mistakes, as long as they tried their hardest, as long as they understand what was at stake, as long as they all made it home or to camp at the end of the day, as long as they were doing their jobs. Cypress would always be honest and tell them what they were doing wrong, but he never would hate them for it. He would never look over his nose at them like he’d never been there before – an eager, anxious newbie ranger with so much to prove, and not enough skill or knowledge to do it yet. 

Thinking about the kindness Cypress had showed her calmed her down a bit. Olivine had never had an older brother, but in her mind, she viewed some of her teachers at the guild as such. Cypress was one of them. Fleet was another, just as nervous as her but full of knowledge and much more hardiness than most would suspect (he did grow up on a farm, after all). She distinctly remembered helping him clean up the remains of some particularly toxic oozes after one of their hunts had gotten particularly messy. Cleaning and proper disposal (drying them out, and then disposing of them in a place far from the water supply) was necessary to make sure that they didn’t come back. While they had been shoveling them into a lined cart, it had begun to rain heavily. It was an Autumn rain, cold and unpleasant. Fleet could’ve complained the whole time, but instead he spent the time shoveling away, telling Olivine jokes and stories about his past missions. There was a sort of peace and happiness that could be found working on a messy, unpleasant job in the rain (though working past sundown in it would lend itself to hypothermia), and it was brought out by Fleet’s kind and understanding nature. 

The cleanup could have been miserable, but at the end of the day they both returned to the ranger’s outpost soaked and smiling, talking about their favorite types of river fishes and potato and leek soup (they both had a healthy serving of that before bed, they were chilled to the bone). 

There were others that she missed at the Rangers Guild, of course - Druid Ranger Captain Ruby, and even the old insufferable bear of a hunter, Stonecutter. The arcane-focused rangers who helped them track and monitor - the germophobic and good-humored Rye, along with the higher-ranked Shale and Slate (no relation). The high-strung but incredibly organized elf, Rivern, the jaded and wise-cracking (but no less intelligent) elf, Sonus. Then there was Fern, a half-elven recruit even newer than Olivine whom she had become fast friends with (it had not been easy for Olivine to make new friends after joining the Corvale Rangers, so this came as a pleasant surprise). Just remembering Fern and her jokes made Olivine chuckle. Fern was the most energetic of the bunch. Olivine had jokingly told her that she reminded her of a hummingbird. She had a personal habit of assigning a bird they resembled to each of her compatriots. Some were birds of prey, some were songbirds… But deep down she thought of all of them like the crows on the Corvale Rangers’ crest. All of them---

All of them. 

All of them hadn’t seen or heard from her in over two months. No, six months at this point. Half a year. And Corvale, her home, was likely being puppetted by a cult that had wormed its way into all different parts of society. Like an infection. Like a toxin left behind by an ooze that had gotten into the water supply. Silently it had flowed through the groundwater and through the seeps and into the riverways. It had spread, the elderly and infirm the only ones showing symptoms at first. Upset stomachs. Headaches. Dizzy heads and dry mouths. Building up over time, gaining in intensity until even those with stronger immune systems were feeling it. And causing a fever, a fever that Olivine knew only as war. 

Olivine struggled between her feelings for a second, feeling sick in a kaleidoscope of ways that were hard to pinpoint. She couldn’t tell if it was worth it to dive into her negative emotions, the situation, and simmer in it. A small, contrary part of her was always ready for horrible things to happen, almost wanted it. Wanted conflict, wanted challenges to overcome. 

“Life is full of them,” Olivine thought, “So why spend your whole life hating the possibility of them anyway? Maybe this time, you can prove yourself? Right? There was a way to embrace that part of me without hating myself, right?”

She shook her head. Conflicts didn’t work like that. War and its effects were infinitely more complicated and horrible than one could comprehend. While Olivine could marvel at all the ways that people could be affected, at how people would fight back, at how armies could be amassed, and blood could spill in vicious sprawling battles – she had made the decision to always try to stop it. No matter what sick part of her craved excitement and conflict, a chance to prove herself – her disgust for wasted lives and pain followed close on its heels. 

She took a breath and leaned back away from the dresser, looking at her blotchy reflection in the mirror. A few moles, rougher reddened skin over her nose and cheeks from being outdoors all the time. The permanently sunken in eyes that she’d inherited from her father, and an occasional smattering of blemishes. Was this part of who she was? She reflexively tested her teeth with her tongue, something she’d been doing a lot lately. Her teeth were not protruding the way they were underground. Olivine had known that would be the case but was still somewhat disappointed. The teeth were never a problem. She’d inherited those from her grandmother, she was proud to have them. They looked good, they felt right. 

Her grandma was a smart, clever woman who was good with tools and machines, who loved mountain wildflowers and windchimes and the first sunny day after a long winter. Just like her name. Sunny had always been good. Her people were as good and bad as anyone else’s. Olivine wanted to be more like her. 

No, Olivine’s desire for conflict, for a chance to fight, for a challenge to face with a crooked smile, it might’ve come from her grandfather – an Elven Ranger (perhaps with a pinch of her father’s bluster and her mother’s determination). But she couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing it wrong. Grandpa Elem had always had his heart in the right place, had always been loyal to his family and friends. How did he do it so well? Grandma Sunny had always said that he understood feelings of loneliness better than anyone she’d ever known. That he’d spent so many years as a guard in the forests before she met him, that it had helped shape who he was. As a result, when he experienced challenges, bad situations, he viewed them as opportunities – but he never forgot the people he loved or what was at stake. 

This was silly. A person wasn’t just the sum of who they’re related to, who they’re raised by. Olivine knew that. She had decided that she wanted to be like her grandfather at some point. She had seen some of the personality traits and skills he’d possessed and badly wanted to have them as her own. She had done the same with her grandmother – the tinkerer, she always came up with a solution to a problem, always. 

She thought of watching her grandfather shoot a longbow at a pear tree for practice. And then with a wink, he aimed an arrow up into the tree, and shot right through a small branch holding 4 pears. He’d picked it up and gave a pear to a stunned Olivine and a delighted Halite. The other he’d tossed to his wife, who caught it without even looking up from the bench she was sanding, but Olivine had seen the smile at the corner of her mouth. 

It was hard not to want to be like that. 

It was also hard not to think about how Grandma Sunny (now in her twilight years) and Grandpa Elem were doing. They lived fairly off the grid. But her parents… What would they do if someone came to interrogate them? Olivine hadn’t always gotten along with her father, but she cared about both him and her mother. And then there was Halite. Her sibling, her best friend in the world. She and her wife were strong, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be hurt-

And even worse…. That damn cult… She thought angrily of someone barging into her parent’s home, hurting her father, still recovering from a long illness, and her drained and worried mother, dammit they’ve been through enough just let them BE-

Olivine let out a frustrated grunt which brought her out of her thoughts. She blinked and realized that she’d absentmindedly gone to sit on her bed. She wasn’t even dressed yet. How long had she been sitting here ruminating? Her stomach let out a small growl of protest and that gave her an answer. Too long. She’d also need to brew up a drought of pain-relieving tea with the herbs that Colin had helped her pick out the last time they were in Sigil.

She chased away the thoughts about Colin and Pebble that she knew they would have to deal with in the coming day. She knew what she needed to do for that already. Sit down, list out their options. Figure out what place was safest for the kids…. What was best for them. Reach a decision. Carry it out. 

She knew, with a pang of guilt, that they’d bitten off more than they could chew by essentially adopting two abandoned children, especially since they were engaging on a quest that held danger around every corner. And now their future held war, conflict, potentially death. But what other choice had there been? 

Pebble had been living on the streets, begging for money, no family. And she was so happy and bright, just…. So happy to have a family. Olivine thought of the small swell of pride she’d felt as she saw the contraption clever little Pebble had built to keep out intruders (Grandma Sunny would love to see it), and then the utter horror over the reason that she’d made it. Olivine thought of the way that her soft coal-black feathers had felt under her hand as she’d ruffled them, choking back tears as she’d apologized for leaving her for so long. The way the little bird had hugged her in response. 

Olivine had never wished to carry children of her own and likely never would, but she would gladly take up the mantle of guardian for Pebble and Colin. 

And Colin, just as bright and having gone through so much… Colin who just wanted to find a place where he belonged, who wanted to make right his mistakes and prove himself. To learn and grow into someone smart, helpful, good, strong. Olivine knew that feeling all too well. Devin had been right about one thing, Colin was truly a “remarkable, wonderful” boy, but Devin had had no respect or understanding of why that was true. The bastard had been no more of a surrogate farther than the loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen counter. He had failed as a guardian, failed as a doctor, failed as a scientist, failed as a NECROMANCER, spat in the face of EVERYTHING her sister was and what an arcane researcher SHOULD be - 

Olivine looked down at her hands to realize that they were balled up into fists, and realized she was gritting her teeth to the point that her jaw was actually hurting. Thinking about Devin always spiked her blood pressure. 

She stood up finally, resolving to get breakfast and tea in her. She needed it, and she was getting nowhere here.

She put on a pair of socks and changed out of her night shirt into a forest-green tunic. She didn’t have to worry about waking Milo up (her bed had been empty upon Olivine’s awakening), but she did want to give the kids (probably sleeping in Charity and Clancy’s room) an uninterrupted sleep. She crept carefully along the hallway and stopped for a second at the top of the stairs, suddenly remembering that last night had been different. Part of the night had had them all sleeping in a pile in the living room together. Olivine frowned, she only vaguely remembered going up to her own bed to sleep, but that was a habit of hers. Routine soothed her, and after several hours of drifting in and out of sleep on the floor with the others snoring nearby (at some point she remembered Milo and Clancy were in the kitchen having a chat about… Frogs?), she had left the pile.

She shuffled downstairs, feeling that strange pang of anxiety she always got when greeting her friends/family for the first part of the day. Maybe it was because she was often the last to wake up, something that she felt was somewhat embarrassing for a ranger. Maybe it was because it only took an hour of extra sleep for her to wake up feeling like her cranky, greedy, childhood self, and feeling like she’d already failed the day, somehow. 

Or maybe it was because greeting everyone in the morning required greeting a Yugoloth, who had offered them melon and wine as a show of comradery last night. And Olivine had attempted to joke that the people who’d broken into their house and threatened their feathered child were his siblings. She pinched the bridge of her nose, how many stupid things could she say in the span of a day? 

Old Stonecutter had told her stories about his hunts of infernal beings. The worst part about them was that she knew he hadn’t been lying or exaggerating. Stonecutter really had hunted everything (and in the case of a lot of it, stuffed it and hung it on the wall). And while Olivine wasn’t fond of his tendency to hunt for sport, there was no doubt that he was the best in the business. There would be months where he would disappear with a couple of rangers for a “special case” (usually something especially large and ferocious encroaching on a small, backwoods town that the local officials couldn’t handle). Each time he’d come back with some exhausted and beat-up looking rangers and a new story to tell (and very often, much like Clancy had taken from the Displacer Beast, a souvenir). 

But even Stonecutter, a man who had hunted both bears and Direbears got a tone of nervousness in his voice when talking about infernals. Olivine doubted that even he had ever hunted a Yugoloth. She wished she could at least ask him if he’d ever encountered one. 

She shuffled over to the kitchen counter and glanced over into the living room. Reyn and Charity were nowhere to be found. Clancy was passed out on the couch, snoozing under the weight of two children. Milo was in the reading chair next to the bookshelf near the window, a tome in a language unreadable to Olivine open and resting on her chest and her eyes closed as she breathed slowly. She’d probably fallen asleep around the earliest part of morning. Milo got so little sleep, and she would wake up as soon as Olivine started making any noise, so Olivine at least tried to be a little quieter than usual. Had she been the first to awaken for once? She scanned the breakfast table for signs of Charity’s morning cup of tea next to a book, but only saw a few stray dishes and fresh crumbs and…. Some pancakes? With a rueful sigh, Olivine realized she’d probably actually missed breakfast and was in fact the last one to get up again. The others were probably in an after-breakfast food coma (well, Clancy at least). That made more sense. If Milo was going to bed for the night, she wouldn’t fall asleep alone in a chair. She generally slept next to one of the others these days. Sleeping alone had been harder for her lately. 

Olivine looked over at the strange timepiece sitting on the windowsill and caught site of the light streaming in through the blinds. Yep, late morning, however that worked in Sigil.

As she moved to find a plate for herself, she heard a shuffle of feet and talons behind her, along with a muffled “Huh?” from Clancy. She turned around to see both Colin and Pebble ready to greet her. Pebble immediately gave her another hug while Colin spoke, mossy green eyes sparkling with pent-up excitement. 

“Good morning Olivine! Did you sleep well? We left you some pancakes. When we went to check on you, you seemed to be sleeping peacefully and we just well…. I mean we didn’t have the heart to wake you up and you got injured and stuff and you seemed really tired so, we left you alone- “Colin rambled. 

Olivine smiled, “That’s all right Colin, I appreciate you thinking of me. And I’m impressed that you managed to leave me anything, two growing kids, and a bunch of stressed out and hungry adults usually takes care of food pretty quick.” Olivine gave a small chuckle while gently patting Pebble’s head. 

“Oh,” Colin said, “I guess you guys would be stressed out about everything.” There was a tone of nervousness in his voice, and Olivine regretted mentioning it. Colin had been anxious and scared for four months while they were gone, working around the city to keep himself and Pebble fed. He didn’t need to be worrying about them. Olivine quickly waved her hand. 

“Don’t worry too much about it, uh, you know, part of the job!” She said, hurriedly trying to change the subject “We can handle it, trust me. Now I need some breakfast. Was it just pancakes? Any turkey bacon? What do we have for fruit?”

An unreadable look passed over Colin’s face before he smiled again, “Oh yeah you should’ve seen the spread Charity picked up yesterday. It was amazing- “

They went about checking out the now incredibly over-laden fruit bowl at the end of the kitchen table. Olivine plucked some grapes and sliced up a ripe banana over the remaining pancakes (they’d even made some wheat ones for her, knowing her stomach faired better with them). As she did this, Pebble and Colin chattered at her about Sigil munching on the remaining non-wheat pancakes. They talked about how things had been going with Colin’s training, how Pebble’s music practice was going, and peppering her with questions about the Fae Realm (Pebble kept sneaking grapes from Olivine’s plate and giggling).

“Is it true you got your leg cut off?” Colin asked at one point, and Olivine swallowed a piece of pancake without really chewing it. “Oh, oh sorry, maybe I shouldn’t ask about that now.” Olivine held up a hand.

“No, no it’s fine. I’d be curious about it too. I mean,” She looked down at her leg, still showing the clear re-attachment scar from Clancy and Charity’s impromptu (but in retrospect, incredible) magic. “I mean it’s weird to think about since I lost it and then got it back so quickly.” She laughed nervously, trying not to remember how scared and helpless she felt, and how quickly the metal trap had severed her leg right through the calf so completely as she tried to leap out of the way. And then the agonizing pain – 

Olivine felt a claw-like hand on her arm and felt Pebble’s obsidian-like beady black eyes boring into her. Pebble opened her mouth and the voice of what sounded like doctor at a local healing center came out: 

“How did you end up doing that to yourself? Goodness that must’ve hurt.” And then after that, the strained voice of a patient, “I wish I could say there was a good reason, *hrrk*, but I honestly just kind of wasn’t watching where I was going.” Olivine let out a laugh at the last part but stopped when she realized Pebble wasn’t laughing along with herself and Colin. Olivine felt another stab of guilt and thought for a second before replying.

“I promise I’ll be a lot more careful next time, Pebble.” She patted the claw-like hand. “Luckily, I don’t travel alone.” Olivine nodded towards the still sluggish Clancy, who had attempted to bring his violin up to him while he was on the couch and half started playing, only to fall back into food coma state with it resting on his shoulder. Milo was yawning and stretching out, ever-present bags under her eyes. “Charity and Clancy were able to work together to fix me up. It was really incredible. And I was lucky they were there. That all of them were there.” Olivine chased a final slice of banana on her plate. “And frankly, I hope I won’t have to face a giant razor-sharp pair of scissors as an opponent ever again. But if I do,” She shrugged, “I’ll um, I’ll be prepared.” 

“A giant…. Pair of scissors?” Colin asked.

“Yep.” Olivine said before chomping down on the last piece of banana. “Did the others not mention it?”

Colin blinked, “Clancy mentioned it, but I honestly thought he was kidding- “

“I was noooooot,” Clancy called out, now actually awake, from the living room as he ran the bow over the strings of his violin in a note matching his tone. He hummed a pleasant melody before matching it with notes of the instrument, repeating the sequence and then adding some flair to it. Pebble watched, wide-eyed and happy and ran over to listen, clearly rapt to hear Clancy playing again. His berry-red eyes lit up beautifully in the strange “sunlight” streaming in through the windows as he swayed to his own music. A true performer. 

Olivine cleaned up the rest of her breakfast dishes with some help from Colin, who wanted desperately to know more about the Goodberry Flask. Olivine discussed what types of berries she was hoping to gather and test out in the flask. At some point, Milo wandered over to the breakfast table, plopping her tome open on it, and joined in the conversation. 

“Did you end up trying out those blue berries from the Fae Realm before we left Esterfey?” Milo asked, stirring a mug of herbal tea (not her favorite beverage, but the blend had been picked out by Charity and Colin on a trip to the market, as it was supposed to help calm nerves and help with anxiety). “Also, sorry uh, we had bacon but it met an unfortunate end before you got down here.” She said with a wink. Olivine smirked.

“Honestly the bacon would’ve probably just upset my stomach unless it was the turkey stuff, so really I owe you for keeping me away from it.” 

Milo chuckled softly and took a sip of the tea. She shuddered a bit and made a face before continuing, “I was busy making sure I had what I needed for the trip home. And saying goodbye to my family…” Much like the tome Milo was looking through, a look passed over Milo’s face that was faraway and unreadable to Olivine. She wasn’t particularly surprised, she knew Milo had a lot on her mind (even more lately than usual, which was saying something). They all did. “But I was curious as to what you were concocting over in the guest room.”

“Well,” Olivine began, “I did manage to successfully concoct potions for both of the berry types. That Fae Berry is…. Probably going to knock someone out cold if I ever use it.” Olivine said, unable to suppress a crooked smile that surprised even her. “And the plape produced what appears to be a very successful healing concoction, unsurprisingly.” 

“What’s a plape?” Colin piped up. This produced a small chortle from Milo.

“A grape that is the size of a plum,” Milo explained with a smile. “A very fine grape, well taken care of and harvested fresh. There is one vineyard I know of in Esterfey that produces them. Ridiculously expensive, and,” She smiled, “Totally flippin’ AMAZING.” Colin smiled. “But the one Olivine is talking about was a Fae Variety for sure. A glowing plape, handpicked from the walls of a labyrinth and grown by really cute dryads.” Milo said with another exaggerated wink. Olivine cleared her throat awkwardly. 

“I’d love to see it… Gosh I’d love to see Esterfey at some point too.” Colin said, unable to contain his fascination. “It’s your home, Milo, right? Plus, I mean, I’ve never been there…. And it’s connected to the Fae Realm?” His eyes were wide, “It does sound pretty great…” Milo smiled. 

“Well, we might be able to take you there sooner than you think.” Milo said encouragingly. She glanced over at Olivine, who was giving the wood grains of the table a blank stare and added, “But we can talk about that later, maybe uh, even tonight.” She looked again over at Olivine. 

“You okay over there Saltbringer?” And then a pause, “We do have to talk about this eventually, you know.” Milo’s voice prodded into Olivine’s consciousness, breaking her out of the swirl of thoughts that were brewing. She looked up and blinked, her mind having gone from focusing on wood grains and what kind of tree was used to make the table and back to reality.

“Oh uh, yeah.” Olivine said, rubbing her temples. Milo raised an eyebrow, but Colin hadn’t noticed, distracted as Clancy started played a lovely, upbeat melody and moving towards the kitchen. It soothed Olivine a little bit, and she exhaled gently.

Olivine lowered her voice and leaned towards the Sorcerer, “I didn’t forget, Milo”. She winced and rubbed her temples again, “I have a few things I need to take care of this morning though. And I need to put on actual pants if I’m going to do that.” 

Milo paused and then nodded, violet-toned eyes wandering over to Clancy and his impromptu performance, “Fair enough. Go get your pants, Saltbringer.” She took another sip of the tea and tried her best not to make a face. 

 

Olivine took an incredibly necessary bathroom break before heading upstairs to enter her room. At the entrance, she noticed that Clancy and Charity’s door was now partly open. Inside she could hear scrawling and murmuring. 

“Good morning Charity!” Olivine called out. There was a pause before the Paladin answered.

“Good morning Olivine, we left you some pancakes!” Charity called out. 

“Yep, thank you. They were great. I appreciated the uh, wheat.” Olivine answered. 

“I’m glad!” Charity said brightly. There was a measured pause afterwards, like Charity wanted to say something, but then the scrawling began again. 

Olivine went to the dresser and dug out a clean pair of brown canvas pants before sliding into her brown leather boots. As she was doing this, she caught site of her leather cuirass, hung over a chair to air out. It definitely needed cleaning and maybe a fresh coat of polish. 

It was a common cuirass made for the Corvale Rangers. Most of Olivine’s compatriots wore something similar. It was simple, well made. Could be worn in warm months or cold months, you just had to adjust what clothing items you wore under or over it. It was a good piece of armor, and Olivine had had it for about 6 years at this point (she received it back when she was still a newbie, still overseen by Cypress as part of her training). Part of her couldn’t help but drool over the new, shiny leather armor pieces that she had seen on display at various shops in Sigil. In all honesty, she did want a new set of armor. But it was hard to get rid of something that was so reliable, something that reminded her of the rangers. 

She walked over to it and ran her hands over the surface. She ran her fingers over the mostly-repaired claw marks where Devin’s unfortunate undead “creations” had almost ripped her apart and was unable to suppress a shudder. They’d been patched over by a skilled Sigil leatherworker (recommended by Reyn) before their trip to Esterfey, but even that wouldn’t last forever. After all the dodging, running, struggling, and fighting of the Fae maze, she could see the patches weakening. 

She thought again of the showdown in Cauldwell, how helpless she had felt, unable to fend off a few undead while her friends had fought a massive and powerful werewolf. She’d kept trying to fight, like a moth smacking its soft body against a window in hopes of getting towards a light on inside. It was hard not to compare it to another situation, her first encounter with a truly large and threatening beast…

“I suppose the last time I’d been around undead before that, they were protecting me.” Olivine thought. Not that it made things much better.

Her hand ghosted over a few fairly deep slice-marks that had been patched up across the stomach, and remembered the lurching, unpleasant sensation of the area suddenly feeling wet before the pain set in. She reflexively touched her own stomach, only faintly scarred by that attack, thanks again to Charity’s healing magic.

“I mean at least I didn’t stumble into that situation by accident.” Olivine winced, “But I was at the back, being guarded by a bunch of werewolf kids, and I could barely land a hit. I suppose that’s at least slightly less stupid than the other times I’ve gotten hurt, but no less pathetic.” 

She looked down at her boots. Miraculously, the large “scissors” that had sliced her leg off around the top of her calf muscle had missed her boots for the most part, only taking a small piece out of the top.

A small, mostly unwelcome thought poked into her head. Back when they were fighting Hayles, she’d managed to find a weak spot in the guard captain’s otherwise heavy armor, an arrow making contact with flesh and bone. It didn’t make up for her mistake in allowing herself to trust Hayles at the wrong moment, but Olivine was at least a little proud of that shot. 

“Does Hayles have a scar there, I wonder?” Olivine thought. “Does she look at it and think of her mistakes too?” Olivine shook her head, “Does she think about all of us? About Corvale? What kind of person does something like that? A brainwashed zealot? What kind of things will the cult do to Corvale, to the people in Corvale- “

Olivine’s heart began to beat faster, as an unexpected surge of guilt and anxiety crawled its way up, surprising Olivine. And rage, there was rage there too. Much like Devin, thinking about Hayles caused Olivine’s blood pressure to spike when she was under stress. She could wave off the feelings and get back to work, but the thoughts still circled around afterwards. And some days it was just harder to deal with at all, like how it had been when her thoughts had first started turning unhealthily obsessive when she was in grade school – worrying her mom, worrying her dad... Halite understood, but she had been worried too… Olivine reflexively snapped her teeth together and tapped her fingers across the surface of the deep-amber toned, well-worn leather, trying to calm herself down. This line of thought was not useful. She had things to do today, real things to do. She had to check in with her dojo (my god they probably thought she just gave up or fucking died – and what had Sorai thought?) she had to start preparing to fight again, she had to prepare for working in and around a war, and she had to prepare to send her adopted children who had placed their faith in them away, so they could be saf—

“ERRGH!” Olivine snarled as she realized she’d just bit her tongue with one of her canines (one of the sharpest ones, perfect).

“Ouch,” She said, putting her fingers to her mouth and finding blood. Sheesh. 

“You really need to take it easy, Saltbringer.” She sighed, exasperated at herself. “You’re being ridiculous.” A slight shuffling and a knock at the door made her turn around.

“Uh, come on in. I’m decent.” Olivine called out.

The door open and Charity poked her head into the room (bending under the doorframe to do so) and gave Olivine a smile before noticing the blood.

“A-are you okay?” The Tiefling woman asked, her milky eyes widening in concern. “Do you need some help?” Olivine gave a snort, but she appreciated Charity’s kindness, and her tendency to care about even minor injuries. 

“Yeah,” Olivine answered, “It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m just stupid,” she paused to wipe the blood from her mouth and had to suppress a flashback to the whole mess with Beryl. “Bit my tongue again.” She said with a half-hearted grin.

“Oh,” Charity said, frowning as she raised an eyebrow, “Ouch.”

“Yeah uh, the canines, they’ll uh, they’ll get ya.” Olivine said, rubbing the back of her head. “So, what can I do for you?”

“Oh, well, I did want to talk to you as well, but,” She stepped aside. Pebble poked her feathery head from behind the 7-foot tall woman’s legs, “Someone wanted to talk to you I think.” Charity smiled.

“Oh,” Olivine said, “What’s up little buddy?” Pebble walked up to her, the usually excitable and energetic child more subdued and nervous. She held out her hand. In it was a medium-sized, smooth object that Olivine realized was a rock. She gave Pebble a goofy grin. “You found that for me?” Pebble nodded and opened her beak, the sound of a fisherman’s voice ringing out:

“That old pond doesn’t have much in terms of fishing, but if you wanna skip stones, it’s the perfect place!”

Olivine smiled warmly, understanding the meaning perfectly. She bent down and took the rock out of Pebble’s hand and looked at it. It was an absolutely beautiful stone (in Olivine’s opinion). It had clearly been smoothed down by ages of water movement and had somehow ended up at the pond at the park in Sigil where Olivine and Pebble had gone to skip stones in the evening quite a few times. Half rich dark grey Basalt and half – 

“Olivine.” The ranger blinked, “This stone has Olivine in it.” She looked at the little Kenku, who was looking at her with expectant eyes. “And you found this just for me?” Pebble nodded, bouncing up and down a bit. Olivine found herself unexpectedly holding back a few tears. “Pebble… I-I love it.” Pebble made some happy squawking noises and Olivine took her in for a hug. As she looked over the bird child’s back at a half-smiling Charity, Olivine thought about what this present meant. 

Pebble had gone to the park in their four-month absence because it was a place that she and Olivine had gone to. While they’d skipped stones out there, Olivine had happily taught her about all the different types of minerals in the interesting rocks they found. Surprisingly, the Kenku child had seemed very curious and interested in what Olivine had to say (Olivine had made sure to do exaggerated sound effects to describe how some rocks were formed from exploding volcanoes or flowing lava). 

“I told her what Olivine was, what it looked like. She listened. And she waited for us to come back. She went to that pond to get that rock for me, because she wanted to give it to me when I came back.” Olivine thought of Pebble and Colin skipping stones together in the evening, or even Pebble just alone. Trying not to think of their missing guardians, and the possibility that they had been abandoned... Olivine was almost overcome with emotion. She felt the sharpness of guilt hit her like one of the undead claws that had almost killed her in Cauldwell. 

But she also felt a deep bond with the little Kenku and hugged her deeply before thanking her again. Pebble happily bounced about before opening her beak to play the sound of a mother at a candlenights celebration:

“Is everyone ready to open their gifts?” A small group of children answered, “Yeah!” And next there was the sound of paper being torn, and yelps of excitement from the children. “This is amazing!” “Look at this! Holy crap mom, how did you find this?” The mother answered, “Oh, your old ma’ has her ways.”

“She has gifts for everyone,” Charity explained. She smiled but Olivine could see pent up emotion in her eyes. Charity held up a beautiful writing quill made from what appeared to be a snowy owl feather. Charity’s eyes began to water “It’s…. It’s perfect.” She managed to choke out. 

 

Olivine gave her a teary laugh. And looked back at Pebble, who looked pensive for a moment before opening her mouth again – but this time it was the doctor and patient from their earlier conversation:

“Alright, with a healing spell like that, some cleaning and disinfectant, and some fresh bandages, that should feel much better. Try to be more careful next time. Also, this goes without saying, but please watch where you’re going in weaponry shops. I know that they often arrange things to LOOK good, but it may not be in the safest manner.” And then the patient, now sounding a lot better answered, “Thanks doc. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll be going to shop there again anytime soon.” The doctor again, “Oh, I imagine falling onto a Morningstar would dissuade most people.“ And finally the patient again, “Well if I’m being honest, the prices were what really drove me away.” 

Charity let out a hearty snort while Olivine choked back laughter. “Is that from a stand-up routine?” She asked. Pebble let out some small bird-like giggles as well before pulling out a small pouch and looking inside it. She nodded to herself and then tucked it away. She hugged Olivine around the legs and then ran over and did the same for Charity (who was still sniffling) before taking off downstairs. 

After she was gone, Olivine wiped her eyes and turned her attention to Charity. “So,” Olivine started with another sniffly laugh, “What did you want to talk with me about?”

Charity finished wiping her eyes before putting her spectacles back on. She looked up at Olivine and paused for a second, chewing her lip. 

“I wanted to ask you about something…. And…. You don’t have to answer me if you don’t feel comfortable doing so. I know there’s,” She gestured vaguely, “A lot going on.”

Olivine considered this for a moment, feeling the sore spot where she’d just bit her tongue.

“I think I might know what this is about, though I could be wrong.” Olivine walked towards Charity and pointed to her own mouth. “I’m guessing ah, you want to know about all of this.” Charity gave a nod. Olivine nodded back and thought about where to start. 

It wasn’t like this was some deep, dark secret, or anything to be ashamed of. Back on the way to the Terrene, when the others had first noticed, Olivine thought it was kind of funny. She had planned to explain it to them later, maybe around a campfire when they were on the road somewhere (ever a ranger, the site of a campfire in the evening was still the perfect avenue for rest and conversation to Olivine).

“You like stories, right?” Olivine said brightly, looking up at Charity. 

“Oh yes, absolutely!” Charity replied, fidgeting a bit as if she wanted to grab her notebook to jot this all down, but then stopped. “Oh, uh, you… Probably don’t want me to record it, I’m guessing?”

Olivine shook her head, “Charity, you can write down anything you want. I trust you with it.” Charity beamed. “But,” Olivine added, “I do want one thing in return from you.” 

Charity blinked and cocked her head, her forelocks framing the sides of her head, “What is it?”  
Olivine gave her an excited toothy grin, “I want to know more about you, of course! I haven’t really gotten to do that. You’re my friend,” Olivine spread her arms wide, gesturing towards Charity, “And I want to know more about you! I mean of course I want to know more about the whole team too, but-“ Olivine gestured vaguely, “I like you guys. And though we’ve spent some time together, I feel like I still don’t know as much about you as I would like.” Olivine held her hands up, “But this isn’t just some research thing I mean, I genuinely want to know more about you.” Olivine paused, looking up at Charity.

The Tiefling didn’t look particularly excited about this notion and was looking off to the side in thought. Olivine could see her jaw tense up a bit.

“Of course, I won’t…. I won’t force you to reveal more about yourself than you feel comfortable with – “ Olivine started. Charity held up a hand.

“I’ll do it.” She said finally. “But…” She wrung her hands together again, “I just want to warn you it’s… I mean not all of it is…” She struggled for a second, “There’s a lot of…. Bad stuff. I just… You seem so excited and...” She sighed. 

Olivine blinked for a second, and then reached out and gently put her hands on Charity’s in an attempt to help ease the Tiefling’s anxiety. “Charity, it’s…. Look it’s okay. You… When I said you don’t have to reveal anything you don’t want to, I meant it. And I don’t expect every story to be happy. I mean, most stories aren’t.” Olivine paused, “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. And sometimes,” Olivine continued, “Sometimes you can even look back on some of the bad ones and laugh or learn something new about them when you share them with someone else.” For a split second, Olivine thought of being around the campfire on one of her first missions. Stonecutter and Cypress were there, and Stonecutter was telling Olivine about the bigger beasts he’d hunted. Eventually the subject had turned to Dire Bears. 

“Let me tell ya, Saltbringer, only hunted a few Dire Bears in my time. Always try to avoid em’ if you can. Someone small like you – could probably get away with sneaking away. Always try that first. They generally don’t go after you if you’re not messing with their kill… Well, not unless food has become scarce for them-“

“I uh, I know.” 

“Well, listen, we’re going up in to the mountains. It’s not impossible to see them, I just want you to be prepared – see most grown men will actually shit themselves the first time they see em-“

“Well yeah I uh, don’t blame them… See what I meant was um… I’ve already met one.”

 

The sound of a door opening jarred Olivine out of her thoughts and she realized her hands were still on Charity’s. Olivine quickly removed them, “Heh, sorry.” She said awkwardly. But the Tiefling had stiffened in the way she did when her senses picked up on something. 

Reynard glanced at them as he passed by the open doorway, holding a book, and clearly absorbed in something. Olivine heard him pause at the top of the stairs.  
“Uh, good morning Olivine… Finally.” He called out awkwardly.

“Uh, morning Reyn.” Olivine replied. He’d apparently already greeted everyone else. She heard another pause from Reyn.

“So, did you um…” She could practically hear him wince as he continued, “Get the pancakes they left for uh, you?” Olivine blinked in surprise. She guessed that Reynard was attempting to continue his effort to get along better with the team.

“I… Yeah I uh, I did. Thanks, uh, Reyn.”

“G-Good.” He said, awkwardly, and then continued down the stairs.

After he had passed, Olivine and Charity shared a somewhat bewildered look.

“Huh,” Charity said. “Well um…” She frowned, “Maybe we can um, continue our conversation later?” She looked apologetic. “There is actually something I…. Just remembered I really want to look up. B-But I really do,” this time she laid her hands on top of Olivine’s, “I do want to hear your story, Olivine!”

Olivine smiled up at her, “Yeah, that sounds like a uh, good idea. You go ahead and do your research. I’m betting we’re going to need it. In the meantime, I do have a few things that I need to take care of myself.” Charity nodded understandingly before carefully turning and ducking back into her room.

Olivine sighed and closed the door behind her. She turned back over to her possessions, her leather cuirass still draped over the chair. She walked over and turned over the armor piece, knowing what she would find. 

She ran her fingers over the mark that ran over the top of the left shoulder and continued diagonally towards the left shoulder blade. Only one of the claw marks was visible anymore – the rest had been patched over by a large piece of toughened leather (excellent work for a patching, actually, and it had been done by a local leatherworker back in Hutchinson). 

Olivine closed her eyes and allowed herself to remember this time, instead of pushing the thought away. She wanted to remember it as it actually happened, not let her brain twist it or try to make it a “what could have been” situation. Frankly, Olivine was also tired of trying to outrun her own thoughts.

After all, “what could have been” was her death after wandering into a situation that she was completely unprepared for. 

Had Olivine been born an only child, she would never have made it. 

 

Hutchinson was a village along a trade route that specialized mostly in farming. The rolling hills glowed golden in the fall, and bright green in the summer. If you wanted to hunt deer and other game, however, you could head northwest to the forests that bordered the mountains. Olivine had hunted there a few times before. Brought back her first deer after a trip with her grandfather when she was a teenager. Since then should would occasionally head out on her own, bringing back venison for the family. Sometimes she would return with fish (“Did you shoot this fish with an arrow?”, “Yeah, I didn’t have a fishing rod and it was quicker”). Even better, sometimes she would find some salt deposits, and grab a few chunks of the Halite to take home and show off (Olivine liked looking at all the little cubes winding in and around each other, she had quite a collection at home). 

Bears were occasionally spotted in the area – there was good fishing to be done in the rivers and streams. “Plenty of food for man and beast”, her dad always said. 

At age 21, Olivine was still in her training phase, having only recently been accepted as one of the Corvale Rangers. She’d gone on few light missions with Cypress and his crew – Ooze removal near a river, a town on the plains having trouble with coyotes. She had about two weeks until their next mission, and so she had gone home to visit her family. She would be moving out permanently soon, claiming a spot in the main barracks up in the forests closer to the capital. Halite had been home as well, actually doing some research in the area for her University. In the evenings, by lantern light as they hung out near an old swamp pond, Halite told Olivine about what she’d been studying, and Olivine listened without judgement or fear. 

One morning, Olivine had set out early for the northwestern forests, before her parents woke up. Halite had been pouring over several books at the kitchen table, copying over some relevant passages to her notes. She’d taken the liberty of harvesting some fresh mint from the garden to make both of them tea. Olivine appreciated it – despite her being a ranger, Olivine was still worse at getting up early in the morning than Halite. It was something to look forward to, as the sun still wouldn’t be up for two hours at least. After a quick breakfast, Olivine gave her sibling a quick hug and told her she’d be back sometime in the afternoon or evening. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were going out hunting. Do you want me to tag along? Just to be safe?”

“I should be alright, you already came with me earlier this week when I went to catch fish. I don’t want to keep interrupting your work.”

“Are…. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I won’t be going that far into the forests anyway. Just one doe and I’m out. Last time I got one there, I was barely in the woods.”

“O... Okay. Please, please be careful. Don’t stay out there too long by yourself. Though I’m sure it’ll be beautiful today… And let Mrs. Amanita know that you’re heading towards the woods – she can send word if you don’t come back when you say you will.”

“Good idea sis, thanks.”

Olivine wanted to bring back some venison for her family, knowing that she would soon be gone, only visiting on a few holidays here and there. And she wanted to get used to moving around in her new leather armor – the cuirass she had been granted upon becoming one of the Corvale Rangers. She wanted to break it in properly – after all, she’d be using it a lot.

And deep down, Olivine had wanted a bit of solitude, a bit of time to think about herself and her own abilities. Truthfully, she’d seen the other rangers, and how skilled they were. She wondered if she could ever measure up.

She thought that going into familiar territory for herself would be a good confidence booster, clear her head. 

The trip was fairly standard for Olivine. It was a late summer day, and she made sure to pack plenty of water. She moved at a steady pace through the rolling hills of Hutchinson, calling out greetings to some of the local farmers on the way (Mrs. Amanita had even given her fresh milk from one of her dairy cows on her way past). There was a slight breeze coming from the northwest, and Olivine enjoyed it.

“I should be back by late afternoon, early evening at the latest.”

“Alright, say hi to Buscoe if you see him out there. Oh, and here. You may not be a little thing anymore, but you still need your strength!”

“Thanks, Mrs. Amanita. And thank the cow for me too.”

Eventually the hills gave way to more trees and boulders, and then eventually to the telltale pines of the northwestern forest. Olivine passed only a few other hunters on the way, giving each other their best and walking off towards their respective objectives. She asked if they’d seen any bears, and one of the hunters mentioned seeing some of the local black bears closer to the mountains when he’d been out there earlier in the week. Not anything Olivine wasn’t used to. 

It wasn’t quite rutting season for the deer yet, so Olivine arrived at the forest just after sunrise. She’d have several hours of good hunting before the deer found places to rest during the day, then she’d probably have to wait until evening. Always restless, Olivine preferred to make her kill in the morning. Once while hunting with her grandfather, they had been lucky, getting two does in the morning and a buck in the evening. After each kill, they knelt down and thanked the creatures for a good hunt, and for feeding their family. 

Olivine was able to spot a group of does within her first hour, carefully approaching them. She knew that if her shots weren’t steady and strong (and in the right spot), the arrows might not cause enough harm to kill. 

She eventually found a good enough angle on a doe and took aim, getting in two arrows – one unfortunately hit the flank, nowhere near a vital, the other was a better hit closer to the neck, just above what Olivine guessed would be the lungs. But it wasn’t enough, the creature took off running. Olivine chased after it, she wanted to end it quickly – not let the thing wander around in pain for too long. The other deer scattered, bounding off in the other direction, leaping over broken branches and brush into the dense forest. 

Olivine chased the doe through the forest, noting that they were getting closer to the mountains at its border. She thought nothing of it at the moment, bounding over granite boulders and a few downed pine trees. 

She chased the creature for about a half an hour, motivated by the guilt that she should finish the job and not let the doe suffer – and also determined to get her kill. If only she’d gotten in a better shot (something right in a vital area), the creature could die faster and suffer less. 

Eventually, the deer slowed down, exhausted and starting to lose blood from one of the wounds. Olivine raised her bow and took aim, summoning up a last bit of strength to make the shot count (all the running had really drained her). The arrow landed with a “thwack!” into the deer’s chest, right through the lungs. Olivine let out a sigh of relief as the creature finally tumbled over. Slowly, its breathing slowed, and finally stopped altogether. 

Olivine walked over to the deer, taking a swig out of her waterskin as she went, parched from all the running. She stepped over another downed pine and for the first time noticed how many of them there were.

“Strange.” She thought. It wasn’t unusual for trees to fall down in a forest due to weather or age, but there were… Far more than she thought was normal. She had already been kneeling down, about to thank the deer for the hunt and the coming meal, when she heard a cracking in the brush to her right.

It was at this moment that Olivine realized she had made a possibly fatal mistake. 

Slowly, something rose above the brush. Something with long shaggy fur, something unspeakably large. A pair of shiny black eyes peered at her, but that wasn’t what got Olivine’s attention the most. What looked like chunks of rock or bone protruded out of the thing’s shoulders, and as it moved forward through the brush, more if it being revealed, Olivine could see its massive teeth. The canines were at least the length of her head. 

With a lurching horror, Olivine realized that the downed trees were not that way by accident or weather. She had, of all things, wandered into the freshly claimed stomping ground of something that she had absolutely no hope of defeating. 

A Dire Bear. 

Olivine was fast, she hoped, fast enough to dash into the forest ahead of her. With any luck, the bear would smell the freshly killed deer (no doubt it had probably already smelled it) and go for that.

Quickly, she lunged forward, but something hit her shoulder so hard that it actually sent her sprawling. 

Of all the rotten luck. When had there last been a dire bear in these parts? What was it doing so far down the mountain? Olivine vaguely realized that she must’ve have been must farther up the slope than she’d originally thought. 

“I wasn’t even going to go IN this far. I lost my head, just bounding ahead, trying to get a kill…”

She struggled to stop her head from spinning, and without thinking, dizzily launched herself back into the direction of the forest she’d been aiming for, not looking back. Luckily the blow hadn’t caused any serious injury to her head. If she’d been knocked out, it’d have been all over. She tried to focus on running, weaving in and out of upright trees and boulders, and she tried not to focus on what it would be like to wake up after being knocked out, half-dead but still alive as a Dire Bear began to feast on your body while you laid there, screaming, helpless. 

Later on, Stonecutter would explain to her that if a Dire Bear thought you were trying to get between it and whatever it deemed its kill – especially, it hadn’t eaten in a while – well then, you were just asking for trouble. Olivine had recalled, retrospectively, that the bear didn’t look particularly robust around the mid-section. Stonecutter and Cypress had looked at her in horror. An angry Dire Bear was a nightmare. An angry, desperate Dire Bear was a one-way ticket to meet the Raven Queen. A deer wouldn’t be enough to satisfy it, and most other predators would know by scent to stay away from its territory. It could leave the doe behind and grab the intruder to have as part of its meal.

Olivine cursed, a torrent of sounds following far too closely behind her as she tried to find the best path through the forest, trying to figure out some way to lose it. The snarling coupled with the sounds of brush and trees breaking and snapping behind her was louder than she ever thought possible.

She was vaguely conscious of how badly her shoulder hurt – like it was on fire. She couldn’t worry about that right now though, she had to get away first. She took a sharp right through a large clump of pine trees, snagging her pants on a juniper bush as she ran headfirst past them, trying to put them between her and the bear. 

It seemed to work to some degree, the bear wasn’t as loud as it was before. Olivine kept running, her lungs burning, her stamina running short. She knew she had to keep pushing herself or she would never make it away. The part of the forest she was in had more upright trees, than downed ones, that was good. She took a left, then snapped to the right again, almost spraining her ankle in the process. She knew that the forest was the only thing that was keeping the Dire Bear from killing her, she would never had been able to outrun the thing out in open terrain. 

She kept on like that for another 15 minutes, only slowing down slightly just to catch her breath, her heart racing. During those few times, she became conscious that it wasn’t just her shoulder that was hurt, it was her back as well. She shook her head. She had to get away first, then first aid. She could do it…. She could do it. 

…Maybe. 

Eventually she became conscious that the area was less heavily forested, but unfortunately the crashing sounds (now thankfully farther away) were back in the heavier forest. Olivine cursed again, and started to weave among the large, jagged boulders and rocks among a few trees at the foot of the rocky hills that were starting to pop up. In the distance, to the northwest, Olivine could see one of the smaller mountain peaks appearing. Soft, wispy clouds above it.

In the back of her mind, Olivine thought of the deer she’d hunted down only a short time ago. She’d chased it for a half hour through the forest, and then delivered the killing blow.

 

She doubted that the Dire Bear was going to kneel down and say thank you to her lifeless body before tearing it apart. 

 

She kept running between the rocks, trying not to lose sight of the forest. She hoped that she could make a wide enough semi-circle around and then dive back into it, heading south as fast as she could. Things were quieter now, but she could still hear the snap of brush and the sad, creaking sound as pine trees were bent and pushed over. She hoped the damn thing was getting a face full of pine needles at every turn. 

Finally, the pain in her shoulder and upper back became overwhelming, and her throat was on fire. The sounds a distance off, she skidded to a stop behind a particularly large cluster of boulders. She shakily took several long swigs from her water skin, throat still on fire from breathing so heavily. Then she took a deep breath and took a good look over her left shoulder, wincing as she angled herself to get a better look at it. There was blood seeping through the tears in her armor. She took another deep breath and lifted up the edge of the armor and her shirt underneath to get an actual look at the wounds on her body.

Wow, that was… That was a lot of blood. 

The wounds on her back stung, but they weren’t as bad as the one that she could mostly see out of the corner of her eye. It must’ve caught her shoulder first. She tried not to panic, knowing that it might be possible to hit an artery around there. 

It was deep. She retched a bit and then took a few breaths to calm herself again. Whenever she moved, more blood came out of it. It was dark blood too. The one positive she could find in the situation was that the deep cut was right on her shoulder, had it been closer to her neck, she would probably have bled out by now. Instead (she winced as she poured some water on it) it might have even gone through some of her bone. Either way, this wasn’t good. This was… A severe injury. She’d lost blood, she was still losing it.

She looked up and around, drinking some more water as she did so. She took another deep breath (how many of those did she have left in her?) and listened. The cracking of the brush had died down. Had the thing given up? Gone back to the deer? She took a cautious look out from behind the rocks. Nothing. Just the gentle wind rustling a few mountain flowers, juniper bushes, and pine trees scattered between the boulders. Some green and purplish-brown moss grew on the ground around here. 

Olivine quietly and carefully sat back, shrugging her pack off and quickly took out her bandages. She put a cloth in between her teeth as she poured disinfectant (just alcohol really, she never had any reason to drink the stuff, but it was good for first aid) over her shoulder and back. The cloth muffled the few cries she couldn’t stop from escaping her. She wiped it down as gently as she could, pouring another bit of water on it, then set about wrapping up the worst gash on her shoulder, unbuckling that part of her armor as she did so. Once that was done, she took another look around and listened again. Still nothing. A small wren pecked at the ground about 20 feet away. That was it. She might be in the clear. 

She shoved a cloth pad down the back of her shirt and was awkwardly fastening it with more wrappings over her shoulder and under her left arm (not really that great, but better than nothing when you needed to move fast) when she saw the wren take off. That was really the only warning she got as she became conscious of a huge shadow blocking out the sunlight.

Who knew Dire Bears could be so quiet when they wanted to be? Then again, if it had moved slowly, its approach might have been partially hidden by the noise of the wind.

It sniffed around, trying to figure out where she was. It had climbed up on top of the gathering of boulders she’d hidden behind. She stayed stock still for a second, trying to figure out the best course of action. Towards her left, there was the fairly open area with few trees that eventually gave way to more forest at the bottom of a hill. Denser cover. If the bear went off in another direction for a bit, she might be able to creep her way towards that and then rush for the denser forest. 

Carefully, she picked up a rock and tossed it towards another jagged boulder about fifteen feet away. It smashed into it, making a small but audible noise. The bear snapped its head towards it, and Olivine started backing away, as carefully as she could. Stuffing her bandages under her armpit and carefully picking up her pack (if necessary, she could abandon it to give her more speed, or maybe another distraction).

It didn’t really matter, of course, because the bear was sniffing for blood. The wind shifted, and suddenly it was coming from behind Olivine, driving her scent towards the bear. Slowly, it turned its head around to see her, half backed out of the space between two boulders. 

Shit.

Things were quiet for a half a second, and then the bear emitted a low growl that turned into something large and ungodly. But then, another sound was emitted from the bear’s direction – a higher-pitched, visceral screech, not unlike that of a bat. Only this was different, it had a decidedly humanoid feature to it, in a way that Olivine couldn’t describe. And as the bear started to lunge in her direction, something fast and decidedly smaller slammed into its neck, jabbing something sharp into it.

The attacker turned to Olivine and in a hoarse voice, yelled, “RUN!”

And then the bear and Olivine were both equally surprised as two more shapes leaped at the bear, landing on its back, emitting that same, high-pitched cry. The bear actually shuddered, like it was being disoriented, and tried to shake the assailants off of its back. Olivine blinked and then, in a haze, turned to start running for the dense forest. As she turned, she was flabbergasted to see the last person she expected to be here right now. And for a second, she wondered if she wasn’t hallucinating from the blood loss (or had already died).

“H-Halite?!”

“Come on!” Olivine’s sibling was clutching a leather-bound tome in one hand. They reached out and grabbed Olivine with the other, dragging her towards the forest as the high-pitched cries mixed with the hideous cry of the Dire Bear, shaking the rocks around them. The wind howled and mixed with the sounds of claws hitting flesh, and metal sinking through fur and bone. 

As they were running, Olivine looked back only for a second, watching in horror as the bear sunk its teeth into the being that had attacked it first – a goblin, she realized. Horrified, Olivine realized that she was in goblin territory, and Halite must’ve somehow found a nearby guard to help her find her sister. And now they were fighting a fucking Dire Bear because of her. Olivine let out a strangled cry as she watched this, but the goblin, now caught in the Dire Bear’s mouth, teeth literally sunken in through his armor only spared Olivine one, unnervingly calm look. It lasted a split second, and then he let out another screech at the creature and stabbed his sword straight through its eye. 

Halite was yanking Olivine along as quickly as possible. At some point, Olivine had dropped her pack – but that didn’t matter now. They just had to get away. Olivine wheezed as she followed her sibling through the brush, and then straight into the forest, pine and elm branches smacking at her face as they loped through – tripping over boulders and sticks, startling a few grouses on the way.

After about 10 minutes of this, they stopped to catch their breath. Olivine was conscious that the normal sounds of the forest had picked up again. She realized with another stab of guilt that she had been so busy chasing that doe down earlier, she probably hadn’t even noticed how quiet it had gotten as she’d approached the Dire Bear’s territory. 

Halite plopped down on a rock, panting. Olivine looked at her sibling’s face – her cheeks were red from running so much, and her short light ashen-brown hair was sticking to her forehead. Her brown eyes, while often preoccupied with something, seemed glazed over. Olivine plopped down on the ground for a second, listening carefully for sounds of fighting or…. Bears. She was greeted with nothing but a few blue jays angry that they had come bounding into the area, and some bees lazily buzzing around. 

“H-Halite. Are…. Are you okay?” Olivine asked, “I-I don’t know what to say I don’t even… How did you even find me?” Halite looked down for a second, and it seemed like they were concentrating. Olivine frowned, was Halite casting a spell right now? Olivine looked down and realized that they were staring at a clump of bright green moss. Halite liked to use that as a sort of focus during spellcasting. Olivine had never completely understood it, but she had always thought it was neat.

“I’m okay.” Halite said quietly, still looking at the ground. “Are you alright?”

“I-I mean well, yeah, sort of. I mean I’m. I’m injured but I can, we can get treatment for that.” Halite nodded at this, and without looking up, they reached into their robe and pulled out a small bauble filled with a reddish liquid. Olivine’s eyebrows shot up.

“A health draught. Sheesh, you did come prepared.” She reached over and carefully took it from her sibling, hands still shaky. She stopped short of drinking it. “What about… What about that guy… The goblins they… They might need this a lot more than me I mean-“

Halite closed their eyes for a second, their brow knotted in concentration. Olivine could feel the air get really tense for a second, and then suddenly, Halite popped their eyes open again.

“Phew,” they said, their eyes suddenly much clearer. “That’s better.” They wiped the sweat from their brow and then looked at the potion Olivine was still holding carefully with both hands. 

“Do you need this?” Olivine asked. Halite gave her an exasperated look.

“No silly, drink it up. I brought it for you.” She waved a hand at Olivine.

“But what about those goblin dudes that just like, saved my ass-“

Halite looked off into the forest, “They won’t need it.”

“Wha-? Seriously? That one guy.” Olivine frowned… Were they…. Oh gods did they all die? Her stomach knotted with guilt. Could Halite sense that? She knew Halite had a connection to the dead, had raised a skeleton or two in her time (with permission from the spirits of course). Could she sense that they had passed? That the Dire Bear was dead?

“Just drink it.” Halite said, putting a hand on Olivine’s shoulder. “I’ll explain later.”

Olivine frowned and sighed, but shakily took the cork out of the bottle and drank the potion. It tasted like it had cinnamon in it, Halite’s personal method for making it taste better. After a few minutes, the throbbing in her shoulder and her back eased up a bit. She felt more awake and less pained but could also feel how drained she was since the adrenaline had worn off. 

She corked the empty bottle and sat down next to Halite on the rock, looking at the same spot of Moss her sibling had been focusing on a few minutes prior.   
“Halite, I really don’t know what to say.” How did…. How did you even find me?” Olivine asked again. Halite paused for a second, and then flopped over, leaning their head on Olivine’s good shoulder as they often did when they were tired. “Well that’s, not an answer but I’ll take it. You’ve certainly earned it.” Olivine sighed.

“They can explain when they get back,” Halite said, closing their eyes for a second. “They helped me find you in the first place. I’m still amazed that he was even able to find me, so far away.”

Olivine frowned, “Yeah that sounds…. Weird? Why would a goblin mountain guard be anywhere near Hutchinson unless they were stopping in town to trade? And how would they know I was in danger?”

Halite just shook their head and put their feet up on a log, still leaning on Olivine. 

They stayed like this for another 10 minutes, before Olivine heard the cracking of branches and shifting of leaves and pine needles in the underbrush. Her hand went to her axe at her side, knowing it would do precious little if it was the Dire Bear again. But then she realized the sounds were different, more like a group of people tromping through the forest instead of some hulking beast.

A goblin pushed his way through the brush, and then seeing the siblings, called back behind him. “Found em! They look alright.” Olivine blinked at him, there was something off about him that she couldn’t quite place. He was all scuffed up, and there was some blood on his leg. His plate and leather armor was pretty nice, but definitely looked like it needed some care. How long had it been since he’d performed maintenance? And he looked exhausted and pallid, his greenish skin looking somewhat washed out. Then again, he had just fought a Dire Bear. But still, that… Something didn’t seem ri-

If Olivine had had any energy left in her, she probably would’ve made some sort of noise when the others appeared to join them. There were three of them, and they didn’t look…. Great. Two of them looked like what she’d expect – one had an absolutely hideous scratch over his eye, and blood splattered all over his leather cuirass. The other was limping a bit, clearly having received some sort of leg or ankle injury. And his neck was…. Bleeding? Olivine felt another pang of guilt for drinking the health potion.

But the third one was what threw her the most. Standing in front of her was the goblin who had, last Olivine had seen, been in the Dire Bear’s mouth. The canines of the beast had pierced through his side. That wasn’t an injury you just walked away from. Blood leaked from two holes where the beast had bitten him, but it wasn’t gushing out like it should’ve been. Olivine blinked.

“Uh, do uh,” She pointed at him, “Do you need help?” For how badly he appeared to be injured, it didn’t seem to be affecting him in any way shape of form. “Uh, shit, I had uh, bandages in things in my pack but – er, maybe you guys have some I just, shoot.” Olivine ran a hand through her hair. What the hell was going on? She looked up to see the injured goblin giving her a wry smile, while the other goblins stifled a laugh.

“You should probably ask your sister there.” He said. On cue, Halite woke up from their short impromptu rest and sat up, adjusting their glasses and beaming when she saw them all before her.

“You guys all made it back!” And then she frowned, looking at the holes in what appeared to be the captain’s stomach, “How did it go?”  
The guy with the, Olivine now realized, definitely bleeding throat piped up. A bit of blood came out of his mouth as he excitedly spoke, “We got it!” He said happily. “Took a little while to pry Dioran over here out of the thing’s mouth after we finally got it. Took more than a few stabs at its jugular but we finally got it to bleed out. Kept throwing us off but, you know what they say about getting thrown off the ol’ Dire Bear.” The others laughed and Halite smiled.

“You did really well. I’m sorry I’m so sleepy right now but, I really mean it when I say, ‘thank you’.” Halite looked directly at the captain, “Thank you for coming to get me in the first place. I would’ve never have found her without you.” The captain gave Halite a warm smile and turned to Olivine.

“You’re lookin’ a little better. You gonna be able to make it back alright?” He nodded at Olivine’s bandaged shoulder.

“Uh, yeah. Halite uh, brought a health potion for me. Um- “

“Smart gal,” The one with the scratch over his eye smiled. As Olivine glanced at him again, she realized (looking at his good eye) that the color and shape seemed very familiar to her. Gravel-grey eyes like…

“Um, I don’t mean to be rude but, who exactly, are all of you?” Olivine asked, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely, extremely grateful. I would literally be dead without you, but…” Deep down Olivine already knew what was going on. But that just seemed impossible. Halite had raised the dead before but…. Four at once? Four warriors? And one had come to warn Halite –

The one at the back with the grey eye stepped forward, as if to answer, “Here kiddo, you probably dropped this while you were running. Figured you might need it on the way outta the forest.” Olivine looked to see that he was handing her the backpack she’d left behind. She yelped in surprise and stood up.

“My pack! Thank you! Oh gods I really do need this. I think Halite needs food for sure-“ Olivine turned to see Halite rubbing the sand out of her eyes. She turned back to the others to offer them some as well, but the captain put a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. His were actually an orange-hued brown that almost perfectly matched his hair. 

“It looks like your sister is at her limit. You’ve thanked us, and we even got to have fun on this little venture, right boys?” The other goblins whooped and yelled. “Just make sure to thank you sister, okay?” He nodded in her direction, “This took a lot out of her, and she did it for you.” He smiled and let go of Olivine’s shoulder. 

Olivine relaxed and nodded, “I will.” She said. “And thank you again, for… Helping her find me.” They all smiled at that one, with knowing looks in their eyes. And then they all turned in unison and walked off into another part of the forest.

They chatted with each other as they walked away, the grey-eyed one turned to the one with the plate and leather armor and grumbled, “They gotta put more patrols up in this part of the mountains. I tell ya’ what, that thing shouldn’t have been running around here unchecked like that- “

“Yeah but when’s the last time there was a Dire Bear up in these parts? Honestly.”

The grey-eyed one snorted, “Well, I’d say at least as far back as when we were still alive.” A hearty laugh passed among the team as they disappeared into the pine needles.

Olivine watched them go, still incredulous. For a second after that, everything was still. And then out of the corner of her eye, she saw Halite turn up the palms of her hands and then flick her fingers out while muttering the word, “Release.” And after that, quietly, “Thank you.”

 

After Halite and Olivine had taken a break to consume most of the trail mix, dried meat, and bread she’d packed for herself (Halite was ravenous, but Olivine was happy to see the color returning to her cheeks after she’d had enough food and water), they set about for home. As they were leaving their impromptu picnic spot, Olivine looked back in the direction that she had seen the goblins depart in. From a different angle, she could tell that it was actually a small clearing. Surrounded by Elm trees and a few Aspens, there was some freshly disturbed dirt along with some Column-like stones sticking out of the ground. Granite. 

As they walked back down to the dirt roads cutting through the farmland, Olivine felt a sense of intense relief as the wind ruffled her hair.

When Mrs. Amanita caught site of Olivine bandaged up (with a fair amount of dried blood around her shoulder) along with a very obviously exhausted Halite leaning on her, she kindly lent them her horse. She didn’t ask much about what happened, thankfully, and Olivine promised to return him to her promptly the next morning. Her eyes lingered on them as they rode off before she went back inside. 

As Halite snoozed on the non-injured part of Olivine’s back on the ride home, they muttered, “A horse, that would’ve been smart. I could’ve gotten to you faster, maybe it wouldn’t have scratched you up.”

Olivine snorted, “You did amazing. You’re also not the one who ignored a bunch of wrecked forest and walked right into a Dire Bear’s territory just to get a deer.” Halite giggled.

“Dumbass.” Halite murmured. They both laughed. 

 

In the days following this, there were a lot of worried questions from their parents, which were mostly answered truthfully. Halite slept so much that Olivine was worried that her life force had been drained completely, but about five days later, she seemed to be back up to her normal energy levels. 

At some point, while they were sitting outside on the porch, Olivine apologized to Halite, saying that she should’ve been smarter. That her ineptitude had put them both in danger. That frankly, she was barely qualified to be a ranger if she’d made a mistake like that. 

Halite thought about it for a second, and then replied, “It’s not like you were the only person to ever hunt over there. A Dire Bear…” They shook their head, “Something like that hasn’t been spotted in this area for decades. I mean I don’t think you should be heading out on a hunt alone again anytime soon.”

“I know,” Olivine replied, “It was stupid.”

Halite shook their head, “To be honest, if it hadn’t been you, it just as soon could’ve been someone else.”

“Someone else that didn’t have a sibling capable of summoning four undead goblin warriors.” Olivine interjected, looking sideways. 

They were both silent for a second. 

“Did you see that one’s eyes?” Halite asked.

Olivine knew immediately what they were talking about, “Yeah… He had…. Grandma’s eyes.” Halite looked at Olivine and nodded slowly. 

“The one with the brown hair, the captain, was the one who came to get me. I looked out the window about an hour after you left, and there he was, pointing off towards the northwest. Gave me quite a fright. Mom and dad didn’t see him. I gathered up my things and set out immediately.” Halite rubbed their eyes. “I kept seeing him in the distance and around corners, and I just kind of kept following him until I made it up through the forest. And then he brought me to that clearing.” “Halite paused, “Then suddenly it was just the grey-eyed one there. He said ‘sorry I couldn’t come myself, but Dioran was always better with directions.’” The both paused for a second before bursting into laughter.

Halite paused again and said, “I definitely think he knew grandma, like you said, he had her eyes.”

“And her teeth.” Olivine smirked.

“Saltbringer teeth.” Halite answered with a matching expression. 

 

Olivine ran her fingers over the gashes in the cuirass again. This armor had served Olivine Saltbringer, a Corvale Ranger, very well for many years. But other things had proved far more valuable to her. Still, it would always have a place among her things. 

She thought lovingly of Halite, whom she missed dearly, and hoped that she was safe. 

Then she thought of the leather armor the goblin with her grandmother’s eyes had worn. His had definitely been worn out, but it was a good style. She’d seen something similar on (living) goblin hunters and warriors before. 

“Maybe something like that would work for me.” She thought with a smile.

Then she thought back to the intensity with which the goblin captain had tackled the Dire Bear, had gone for its eyes. Even undead, that still took guts. The way the others had surprised it, a nearly impassable enemy, and managed to take it down… She somehow had no doubt that they would’ve fought as bravely and as desperately in life, if the situation called for it. 

She paused and looked over in the mirror again. She gave herself a toothy smile. In this lighting, her eyes looked more like her grandmother’s. Gravel grey. And when she turned out of the light, her eyes gave off a different color. The same color that her mother and sister’s gave off when in darkness, especially bright in caves.

Olivine green. Complimented nicely by a crooked, sharp-toothed set of Saltbringer teeth. 

 

On her way to get some new armor, Olivine decided she needed to stop by the dojo.

She had work to do.


	3. Fire Drills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So when "Fire Drills" By Dessa dropped, It did a few things  
> 1: Revive my soul bc I love her  
> 2: Give me a sick nickname for Milo and her brothers  
> 3: Helped me find one of the first parts of Milos personality that would act as a platform of sorts. Something that she molds her choices and morals around.
> 
>  
> 
> Now, this fic is like 5 months old, I decided to peek at it after reading the Olivine piece I posted earlier from AJ. However, I dont know what kinda headspace I was in when I first abandoned this in my google docs, but I decided to post it bc It was still a turning point in Milos personality. This is before her ankle injury, before she got her Arcana focus and stuff. So ye. Dark shit ahead. Blood and referenced violence. I didnt do much editing, really just spell check. xD
> 
> Oh, I should add! [Things like this are a person using The Message spell]  
> {This is Milo responding to the message spell, or using it}

It wasn't that she wasn't paying attention. Well...That wasn't entirely true. She wasn't paying attention. The incident was still so fresh in her mind that she couldn't think of anything else. Even now she found her eyes drifting over to where Jenie was supposed to be sitting. She wasn't there, because she was in the center. Like a criminal on trial. Because once again she had gotten away from her aid. She was too young to be on her own, Aditya had insisted. She needed more than just her aid. She needed guards. Satvik had nodded silently, arms crossed behind his back as they were all stood in the throne room. Nobody had replied yet. Her mother was there, sitting with her grandmother who was feeling a very pregnant belly, checking that the stress was not doing harm. Her father sat upon his throne, looking at the four of them with a tinge of exasperation. Milo thought she could count the new grey hairs that were forming on her father's head. He used to wear a beard...

maybe he had stopped because it was mostly grey. She gave a soft chuckle at that, and all eyes in the room snapped to her. In the center, her younger sister was being nursed, a bandage wrapped around her head where the club had landed. She had the decency to look down when Milo met her gaze. 

"Is there something humorous about this, sister? Our sister was abducted." She refused to flinch. Her eldest brother had this way about him, that he could suck all the air from the room. He was the Heir. He carried it with a solid strength she did not even see in her father. Perhaps it was bred from Sabra and Abiodun together. But Milo knew her brother. She knew the switches, the triggers to pull. He had been insanely protective over her when she had been young, and Jenie was no different. Satvik simply followed his brother, meanwhile her and Oliver had been knitted to each others sides. From the moment Milo had learned to walk, Oliver had been teaching her how to run. He had encouraged her, in a way very close to her parents. Their parents had been harder on the first two. They had gotten stiff insufferable educators, men who tried to teach her brothers that women owed everything to them until her mother had walked upon a lesson and subsequently removed him. Aditya had not been in favor of Milo learning to wield a sword. To ride a horse. He had fought with their parents when Milo had joined the Militia for two years. It had only been once Safiya stepped in that he had finally gone silent, the discussion labeled as over by the matriarch. They had been worried of course. And they had yelled at her when she was returned, with nightmares and a hardened jaw. But unlike this instance, Milo had been fine, because she had learned to defend herself. Jenie had the basics but she was born weak so it was never pushed upon her. And Milo was alright with this. She hated the skills she had as much as she loved them. Her parents had not designed to treat her as a woman, hardly a girl. But they had doted on Jenie. Maybe she was a little bitter. She would have to think about that later.

\--One day Earlier--

Milo had been in the middle of a friendly fight with Oliver, both dirty and laughing, when she had returned. Melanie was holding her dress up, and she had tears in her eyes.  
"Jenie has been taken!"

Instantly their attention was on the woman. Oliver got details while Milo tended to the scrapes the woman had gotten. They had been in a town by the border, Melanie intending to teach Jenie about the bartering system. She had gotten permission to take this "trip" because she wanted it to be a genuine lesson, which could not be gained within their province, as everyone knew who Jenie was. Apparently she had turned her back to the young royal to explain the new currency they were gaining in the exchange, and hadn't seen Jenie rush off to a table with jewelry. Melanie was only alerted when she heard the child scream, glancing up to see three men gathering around an unseen target. They all had an insignia of a rose with a sword through the center on the backs of their jackets, but that was all Melanie had managed to get as a way to describe them

"I tried to get to her, they shoved me to the floor, and took her!" the woman wailed. Milo covered her ears against the auditory assault, moving away from her a bit. Oliver rose, taking his leave to find his brothers and go to retrieve their sister. Milo rose too, arm at the woman's elbow. "I am glad you were not harmed more. They will undoubtedly reach out for a ransom, if we do not find them first. Lets get you to the kitchen. Something to drink and a safe place to sit. " Once she delivered the aid, she joined up with her brothers. 

Aditya was threatening, tone dark and aura terrifying. Everyone knew who the heir to the throne of Esterfey was. Satvik and Oliver were running the ground, looking for anyone who might have any information. But Milo left a trail of bodies in her wake. She held a dagger to the throats of half of that town, demanding answers, and left them scared but more than willing to comply after. Every second made it more likely that dark things could happen to her sister. Just because a ransom might be made, didn't mean Jenie would be returned in good condition. Her hands clenched into fists, the one holding the dagger gripping so tightly that the engraving was imprinting onto her palm, and she moved faster. If anything was done to her sister, there would be no ransom. She would kill them all. When she found a man before her with the insignia it took all she had to not just run him through, and instead she slammed him against a wall, using surprise to help the fact that he was about her height and built wider than she was in the task. Her dagger was flush to his neck, and she spoke in a voice barely above a growl.

"Tell me where she is."  
"Where who is? You're crazy!"  
"You haven't seen crazy. Where is Jenie Mizraim?" She pressed the metal in. bright red liquid bubbled up around it. Her eyes held nothing, as his eyes filled with panic and he gave the location. It was a house on a road with many others, the idea being to hide in plain sight. To think they would just comply rather than almost tear the village apart to find what was stolen.  
"We just wanted the money, man! We wasn't gonna hurt the kid!"  
"Well you won't be getting money." She said, before drawing her fist back and knocking the wind out of him.  
"If a hair on her head is out of place, there will not be a place in any of the provinces that you will be able to hide in where I will not find you." She whistled loudly, alerting her brothers to her location as she moved to the cabin.

It wasn't a bad cabin. Well kept. Decent yard. But that mattered not, as she, soon flanked by her brothers, kicked the door open. In a corner, was their sister, barely a teenager by human standards, unconscious, with a wound to her head that bled into her brown hair, plastering it to her forehead. Two men were sat at a table, a parchment beneath their hands on a table. They held fear in their postures even as they tried to school themselves. One spoke, his accent thick. He had on the garb of a merchant. Long outer garment, button missing, pants a bit frayed at the edges. hair the only thing perfectly maintained, the insignia smaller on him, on his shoulder. The leader then.

"Ah, the vixen of the wolf pack. Here to rescue your cub?" He gestured to the girl, and Milo made to move, for a hand to grip her shoulder. Satvik was restraining her. She snapped her head to him, eyes wild. Why was he stopping her?  
[We do not know if they have placed a trap on her.]  
{They did not, they were not expecting us to come, did you not see their fear?}  
[Well then, spare our sister the sight. She is coming to, and you do not want her to see you bathed in blood, Milo] At that, Milos shoulders hunched, then dropped. It was true. While Jenie wasn't interested in the skills herself, she looked up to her strong, noble, powerful sister, and Milo didn't want to take that from her. A groan came from the body in the corner, and blue eyes opened, and instantly found her own matching ones.  
"Milo!" Jenie exclaimed, thrashing in the chair as if she could break the ropes. Milo couldn't help but give a relieved smile. Jenie was not badly hurt. Turning her attention back to the men, Milo lost the smile instantly. "Release her to us on your own, or we will take her. " The man narrowed his eyes at her, the other seemed to be waffling on obeying, still obviously afraid. They knew who Milo was. They knew who Satvik was. They couldn't see Oliver and Aditya from behind the two in the doorframe.

"Give us all you have on you, and we will." The man said, standing up from the chair as if he were going to defend himself.  
Milo tilted her head. "That was not part of my offer to you. Return her to us, now." She said, stepping into the room. The second man jerked, moving towards the girl in the corner, before stopping himself. Milo didn't have any spells of suggestion, but she had her will on her side. She rarely encountered people with one stronger than her own.  
"That is my offer to you. Otherwise you can try to take her. I think we can take you and your brother." The leader said, finding some sense of confidence. Milo laughed, wiping her dagger off on her tunic.  
"You're a bigger fool than I thought. You should know that packs travel together." She moved further, closer to the man, as the space in the doorframe was filled with a man who held even less mercy in his eyes than her. The room flushed full of the distinct scent of fear. They had miscalculated. Assumed the ransom would be delivered and paid, and that they would leave richer. They had not thought for a moment that Milo and one brother would show up. They had definitely not thought all four of them would come. But they had.

Almost on cue, activity exploded in the cabin. Oliver and Aditya went for the men, Satvik covering Jenies eyes with one hand and her mouth with the other, as Milo cut her free, allowing her brother to carry their youngest from the place before she could see what was happening, or scream and alert neighbors. While her second oldest brother returned home with their sister, Milo delivered on her promise to the informer, while the others took care of the fools, leaving the note so that when official sentry guards arrived they would know the crime had been committed, and that justice had been delivered.

They all met on the road back to their home, Jenie crying silent tears as she ran from her brother to her sister, Milo picking her up despite her physically being less than short. She had blood on her, but Jenie didn't mention it, so neither did she.  
{Are you hurt anywhere other than your head?}  
[...no. My wrists burn from the ropes...but they didnt do anything else after they hit me]  
{I'm glad. You know brother is going to rip you a new one and try to ground you, right?}  
Jenie winced then sighed. [I know. I'm sorry for worrying you all]  
{No, I am sorry this happened to you at all. } Milo kissed the top of her sisters head as they reached home, healers at the ready to take her and look her over. 

The four siblings left looked at each other, a weight there, as they all decided what their next moves would be, while waiting for the inevitable call to the throne room.

\----Present----

"I was personally thinking about the fact that father stopped wearing a beard because he did not want everyone to see it turn grey with the stress of his rebellious brood." She said offhandedly, rising from where she was sitting. Aditya frowned more, Satvik keep himself impassive, but Oliver chuckled, as did her mother and grandmother. Abiodun looked at the three women in the room

"It was actually because your mother admitted she was lying about liking it. But the task at hand is, we need to assign Jenie a guard. Or keep her home" The king said. Her brothers nodded, offering suggestions for guards that they trusted.

"No. She does not need to be guarded." Milo said. The men looked at her like she was insane. Even her mother and grandmother held a bit of hesitance. Which only spurred her on more.

"You trained me to fight. Not because you distinctly wanted to, but because you had done that three times and none of them had died yet. But your plan now is to lock Jenie under a key, or worse, gruff men who care nothing about her happiness or growth? Absolutely not. Life will deliver blows to her. This is not the first and it will not be the last. But you will not make her incapable of taking care of herself. If she had any sort of weapon on her, she may have stood a chance. If she had been trained to fight, to defend herself. But even still, I am angry that this is the choice we've all come to. " She gestured to her sister, who sat silently. Her mother and grandmother. The women in her life who shaped her.

"We are never told to enjoy ourselves when we go out. We are told, as women, to travel in packs. To keep our eyes open. Because when some man inevitably tries to take advantage of us, we have to have seen it coming and fought them off, or be at risk of being assaulted or murdered, or worse, forced to marry them."

At that her mother laughed slightly.

"We will train her. I will train her. I know her weaknesses and can account for them, but I will not have you locking her away for fear that something may befall her. Putting half of the world off limits to her is not the solution. " She walked over to her sister and took her hand, guiding her up to standing. Her brothers looked gobsmacked. Milo was a force to be reckoned with, and as she led her sister out she dared anyone, even Aditya to challenge her. 

Stopping, she turned to look at the room. "If you all want to make yourselves useful, try finding some better way to penalize those who accost women, and demand bridal ransoms. Women deserve a better line of work than mother fucking vigilance." And with that, the two young Halflings were gone.

As they walked, Milo glanced at Jenie. Jenie was looking at her as if she had plucked the very stars from the skies.  
"I can't believe you swore in the throne room!" Milo laughed, rubbing the back of her neck a bit.  
"Yeah, I might have gotten a bit carried away. I am certain once they pick their jaws off the floor they will scold me for my coarse language." Milo gave a shrug. "I meant what I said. I will be training you as soon as your wound heals. But you are not to run away anymore. You hold value to those who feel they have nothing to lose. "  
"But you run away all the time!"  
"Because I know how to defend myself. Once I deign you able to protect yourself, then you can run off. Does that sound like a deal?"  
"Okay okay" Jenie sighed, but smiled right after. She didn't want to be a fighter. She would have rather use magic than to get blood on herself. But she wanted the freedom her sister had. So she would train to get it, then once she was free, she would find the magic that allowed her the type of defense she wanted.

Milo smiled at her, not knowing the thoughts in her younger sisters head. Perhaps if she had, she could have done things differently. Perhaps she might have lived.


	4. A Familiar Melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After coming home from a rough journey in the labyrinth, Clancy needs a moment to collect himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A CLANCY PIECE. THERES SO MUCH ACTIVITY TODAY!
> 
> End Notes are his words! Enjoy!

Clancy took a deep breath. He was home again, alone in his shared bedroom. He knew that he would start to process everything now that he had a moment, so he tried to made himself busy. He didn’t especially want to think about what happened in the labyrinth right now.

His relatively new journal found its way to his desk, special fey flowers safely pressed inside. A journal wasn’t something he’d ever really expected to keep up with; nothing especially noteworthy happens to a wandering nameless bard. What would he have written about? This town’s silly overheard gossip, or that town’s cute stranger who smiled at his music? None of it really mattered in the long term; he’d be off to the next town soon enough. But things have certainly changed, haven’t they?

It’s been so long since he’s had a consistent place to sleep and a family to watch his back. It’s been way too fucking long, actually. And in all those years, no one’s managed to break through his barriers as easily as this group has. He has absolutely gone soft with the security they bring, yet he still finds himself habitually keeping things from them. He sighs, falling back onto his bed. Even though he trusts his team with his life, he still has one foot out of the door. Just in case.

He huffs a quiet laugh at himself. This is ridiculous. What is he going to do, run away again? It’s a bit fucking late for that. He genuinely loves everyone here; there’s no way in hell he could just leave them. He’s just used to the life of a traveler.

He should work on this. There’s no point in making leaving hurt less if you’re never going to leave.

Granny Gorick’s fortune told him not to get too comfortable...

 

“You who seeks a home for his guarded heart, beware!

The family you’ve found is the biggest threat to your heart’s greatest task.”

 

Granny Gorick was definitely not the best person to take advice from.

Clancy sat up, taking his newly fixed violin in his hands. It was time to open up a bit. He could do a bit.

 

***

 

“Heya sweetheart! Would you like to hear a new song?”

An announcer asks a crowd if they’re ready, and they cheer excitedly.

“Hehe, good. Come, join me in my room.”

 

“My mom used to sing this to me when I was little. Now I want to share it with you! You ready?”

 

A kid asks if their fallen playmate is okay.

“I’m okay. I’m just happy I could play it for you. Thank you for listening, sunshine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My party members are writing cool things for their characters so I wanted to join in. ;u;


	5. Oh How The Past Catches Up To You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dreams are never peaceful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we were all bitten by the writing bug it would seem! Bc heres a Charity Tale!
> 
> Make sure you have tissues nearby, its a feels trip

With a startled gasp Charity shoots up in her bed, awoken from a dream she really wished she could forget. Much less a dream and more like a memory, a cacophony of voices and scenes flashing wildly before her eyes. She brings a hand to her chest in a vain attempt to calm her furiously beating heart, she looks around her room wildly and remembers where she is. She’s not trapped in the dark, it is simply night time, well maybe closer to morning at this point she thinks as she sees light peeking through the curtains. She glances over and finds Clancy’s bed. Empty but full, with both Pebble and Colin sleeping soundly. He must be downstairs with Milo, she thinks.

Beside her Colin starts to stir and Charity reaches over and pats his head, tucking hair behind his ear and whispering.

“Shhhhh, young one, everything is alright.” she begins to hum slightly out of tune but softly and Colin settles in again, falling back to sleep. She sits there for a while petting his hair and humming while she tries to make sense of her dream. She remembers the voices and the moments, but putting them into order was the hard part. Charity moves back and rests her head against the wall behind her bed and closes her eyes.

It’s a warm and peaceful morning and a girl is running through the halls, a book too big for her small arms hugged to her chest. Her pigtails trailing behind her and bouncing as she ran. She was late and her Mother would be FURIOUS if she skipped class again. She hears the school bell ring and she tries to push her little legs to move faster.

\--

The girl is now a teenager, young and alone in her room as she stares into a mirror. She touches her horns, her skin, her nose and finally stares into her eyes. They’re white and remind her of a ghost. Kids can be cruel, and she knows all too well she Does Not Belong here. She hears a door open behind her and an average sized woman in every sense enters the room. Her long beautiful ears bounce, her golden hair pulled into intricate braids and her blue eyes flash with affection as she spots the young girl. She places a hand on the girl’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze.

“Kalmine, my light, I have a gift for you.” The woman says presenting the young girl an intricately woven crown of spring flowers and clover. She gently places it on top of Kalmines head pinning it around her horns to hold it in place.

“This day is for you, my sweet, everyone wants to celebrate your coming of age.” The woman says combing a hand through the young girls hair. She begins to braid it and hums a familiar tune as she weaves flowers throughout the braid, Kalmine huffs and shakes her head.

“Mother-” she’s cut off by the older woman who shushes her.

“At least come dance with me, as your Mother I think I am entitled to at least that.” she says tying off the braid and tugging Kalmine out the door.

\--

She graduates from school and is presented with her sword and shield. Her classmates look dismayed, but all she sees is her Mother’s glowing face in the crowd. With this Kalmine feels like she can do anything.

\--

She opens the door and the smell is horrible.

\--

The funeral procession is beautiful. They don’t let Kalmine speak though. She never gets a chance to talk about how she was a great Mother, mentor, everything.

\--

With a fist full of hair and a pair of scissors in the other, she is now Charity. A word leading her toward what she desperately wanted to be.

\--

For the first time in weeks the door unlocks and light floods into the dark room. Charity looks up and there are three men waiting for her, she stands up and is escorted off the premises. With nothing but her backpack, shield, sword and her faith she’s pushed into a world she’s never seen.

\--

Charity opens her eyes, the sun now streaming through the window across from her and Colin looking at her from the bed. She smiles at him and ruffles his hair playfully.

“You were having a nightmare, Little Wolf, do you remember what you were dreaming of?” Charity lies, not wanting to admit her own weak moment. Colin sits up and worries,

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” He asks and Charity shakes her head smiling at the boy.

With all the movement and talking Pebble sits up from the other side of Colin, the sounds of a loud marketplace resonate from her beak and a man’s voice shouts.

“Hey! What’s all the commotion!” she tilts her head and rubs at her eyes, still sleepy.

“Nothing to worry about, Pebble.” Charity says to soothe her Kenku child, she stands up from her bed, stretching out her back as she goes, hearing her bones pop and creak as they usually do. She reaches over and pats both children on the head and smiles.

“How do pancakes sound this morning, huh?” Charity says and watches as both their eyes light up.


	6. It's Quiet Uptown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo cant sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everyone has kinda done a thing about when the team returned from the Feywilds, so I decided, at 6am, that I would as well. Its now 745. What is time?
> 
> A new Milo story

Milo was awake before anyone else in the flat. She was always awake before them. But this time it wasnt due to her waking up. She had not yet gone to sleep. She couldnt sleep now, because she had taken a rest before returning to Sigil. It had proved wise. As her companions seemed over tired and slightly emotional. Charity had been enraged when informed of what happened while they were away, to the point where she had apologized, and bought Reyn a giant melon. Milo had been as well, but louder than her rage, was the bitter taste of failure on her tongue. They had failed the children they had decided to protect. It wasn't intentionally of course. They could only handle one mission at a time, and the place they had been seemed frozen in an instant, but in truth had been moving so slowly as to be imperceptible to those outside the realm. But they had left these children scared and alone for four months.

“It's never intentional. That matters not and you know it.” Milo hissed into the dark room. Its silence ate up her words, the air still and dead. She could hear the pile of bodies in the space they had pushed all the beds together, tell their distinct sounds of breathing apart. Pebble rarely made noise on the inhale, but on her exhale she gave the softest (cutest) little coo. Colin snored, kind of loudly, but not a sound that was disproportionate to his growth. Olivine was stone silent, when she was sleeping, but she often drifted lightly back into the waking world. She would look around, take a sleepy stock of her situation, before falling back asleep. Charity snuffled in her sleep, and Clancy didn't make a sound aside from the rustling of bedding as he moved. 

At some point Milo moved downstairs to the kitchen, cleaning it from the top down. She had silently dismantled the rest of the trap, and cleaned around her sleeping comrades. It was a skill she had learned young; to be silent. She often moved around the team on missions as well, never waking them up. Even taking the stairs, the house itself made no noise, no wood protested her steps.

After all the chores she could think of were completed, Milo sat at the table, making a budget. How much food and drink did two children of different races need? Was there a way to leave the money somewhere safe where they could easily access it if needed? Could she convince her parents to lend two sentry women to keep watch over them while on missions?

She drew a line through the last bit. Everybody was needed for the war upcoming. At that she groaned softly, dropping her head into her hands and rubbing her eyes with the balls of her palm. War was incoming. How many lives would be lost in Corvale? People who have no idea what is coming, or worse, youth being brainwashed and drafted into a fight nobody really wants to have..They had to find this cult. They had to destroy them, before it reached a peak where there was nobody left to protect. 

 

Her family would try. Her father had been born in war. He had been molded and shaped by the violence around him, and with a great effort, had chosen peace. He never struck first. Her mother on the other hand, had chosen protection. She had lost many in the battles, and killed to keep the remaining few of her lineage alive. She had been afraid to leave them for the warmth of the marriage bed, because none of them had her fire. Would they be safe?

The answer had been no, and her rage had been unstoppable. Her self almost inconsolable. So she had, with her husbands aid, meted out swift, but fair judgement to those they ruled over, so that they would stave off as much crime as possible, and stop it before it became a threat to the land they governed. And it had worked. Esterfey was almost idyllic. 

Her family would try. They would try to find peace, even as the sentry armed up. Lives would be lost. And Corvale would not listen to the warnings. Their young monarch foolish and being led by men who thirsted for blood, who were apparently being led by a cult with fanatical impossible views. Each province had their own system. Their own laws. Corvale would have to wipe out entire generations to indoctrinate the people back into following one leader with one set of laws for all of the lands.

And Milo didn't doubt they would. This cult had people like Hayles in it. Liars willing to sacrifice strangers for their own goals. 

Returning to her list, she blinked when she found a small frog on the paper. It looked up at her, a sound like the beginning of a croak in its throat. She hadn't seen much fauna in Sigil. Smiling at it, she rested her head in her chin.  
“Did you sneak back with Clancy? That boy” She asked softly. 

Almost seeming to summon him, in walked the very bard. His shirt was rumpled with sleep, and his hair was all pushed forward close to his ears.He was stretching with a yawn, but seemed to spring to full awareness when he spotted their little houseguest on the table. Milo laughed when he sat down, attention fully on the amphibian. They talked softly to it, about it, wondering where it had come from. If it came from Esterfey that was one impressive frog. Going through the portal disoriented them a bit, but this frog was still hearty. If it came from sigil, then a day was definitely needed, to find where, and either return the frog, or make new frog friends, or both!

While they were talking, Milo could hear Olivine rise up, and return to her private room. Which was fair. The kids could be blanket hogs sometimes.

The kids. What were they going to do about the kids? They had adopted them so eagerly, and the kids had been thrilled to finally have a family. But the fact is they had almost died on this mission. Ellyllon could have killed them instantly. Any of the creatures in the caves(well save for the satyrs and the shrooms, she supposed) Could have killed them. Olivine had almost lost a leg. Clancy an eye, Milo had been stabbed and Charity had been far more scratched up than they had ever seen her before. That hag had been very strong. They had almost died. And on top of that, they had been gone an entire season, and left the children to fend for themselves, both for food, and for protection. Her hands clenched as she remembered the tale Pebble told about the Yugoloths. It had enraged her to have messed up so severely, again. What if something worse had happened? She would never forgive herself if more harm had come to the little kenku girl.

She was too attached. They all were. They had to do something, because they were leaving again in about a week. And the truth was it would only get more dangerous from here. She had tried to bring it up but everyone had shut her down and demanded to have the talk after sleep. She did not understand it. Technically, only Charity and the children needed sleep. And as her brother had often said, ‘Sleep won't change a rock from a rock. It won't bring new ideas, You're simply prolonging something you do not wish to deal with’

That had not been well received by her teammates, but that didn't make it less true. They had very few options. They could leave the children here, and hope they were safe. They could leave a wealth for them, and hope nobody tried to hurt them to get it, or that it might run dry before their return. If they returned. They would have to hope the other Yugoloths didn't return either. They could release the children back where they had been fo-Absolutely not. That was not an option.

 

The only two options Milo had found, were the same she had found before. From the floor above, a gasp and a slight rustling was heard. Charity was awake. A nightmare. Colin was stirring, but Charity seemed to have gotten him back to sleep, before drifting off again herself. What were they going to do with the children...

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed Clancy eventually toddle back off to the pile. She didn't think he was actively in need of sleep, just the comfort offered by their closeness. They could not bring them along. Too much of a hassle, they barely remembered to keep themselves alive on the mission, let alone children. And they would be a liability, because everyone would be trying to protect them first. And they could possibly be used against them, if they were actively with the group.

She left the finished budget on the table. It would be expensive if they left that money long term, rather than returning in timely fashions to tend to things. But her head was starting to throb, and moving to the common area, she pulled a large tome from her bag, a new book from home, and started reading it, the “Sun” streaming through a window and warming the chair she was in. She was still unable to reach her magic for much, and she was hoping perhaps the book might have the answer as to why.

At some point Charity had come down with the kids and made breakfast. Milo ate a few pancakes, and devoured most of the bacon after everyone got some, before returning to her comfy chair.

Pebble at one point came up to her, beak opening, and an almost motherly voice coming from it “Whatcha got there?”

Milo smiled. “It's a spell book.” She stopped, thinking that might be a useful phrase alone for Pebble to retain. “ My grandmother had made a lot of these, to keep track of what spells she used, and what their alignments and tolls could be. “   
Pebble nodded “It's a spell book.”   
“Correct. Come up here, perhaps we can teach you some new spells and things.” Milo shifted, patting her lap so the Kenku knew she could join her up in the chair. While the others moved about, Milo read the (safe) spells and definitions aloud, pausing to give Pebble time to take in what she chose, and repeat it back. Milo admittedly was enjoying the tender moment, but she was also using it. The spells she was teaching the Kenku child to say, were warding and protection based. Much like brick dust on the doorframe, these would be useful in keeping out those who might try to do harm. She had no idea if Pebble could actually perform the spells, but she had left a loved one open. Not seen the writing written plainly. She had left room for another to sow seeds of darkness, and that had resulted in a death that almost destroyed her. She would not make that mistake twice, even if they sent Pebble and Colin somewhere safer. 

Once She felt that Pebble had learned enough, she let the child go play with Colin, the two of them full of questions for Olivine, who had only recently rejoined the group. She supposed her earlier thoughts about sleep were wrong. She personally enjoyed sleep when she could. But Olivine loved it far more. She slept on as close to a regular schedule as any of them did. 

Milo joined the conversation casually, drifting between consciousness and a light rest as the day began around them in earnest. Someone had put Tea in front of her. Charity she thought. Something had been mentioned about it being good for anxiety, how the kids had picked it out with Milo in mind.

She thanked them, and took a sip.

And narrowly avoided spitting it out onto the rug. It was awful. But the kids beamed, and Charity had a look on her face that implied she might be willing to pour it down her throat with a funnel, so she forced on a smile, and kept sipping.

And grimaced as soon as everyone looked away. The tea was definitely NOT helping her anxiety. 

After Olivine finished eating, and as Clancy kept playing some tune she didn't rully recognize, Milo drifted off fully, book in her lap. 

It wasn't for very long though. There was a slight commotion upstairs, she could hear talons skittering across the floor alongside another pair that were too light to be anyone but Colins. She couldn't make out the discussions, but braced herself for when the noise began again, the children coming downstairs to her, Pebble saying something about presents. 

“Okay, what did you guys get me?” Colin handed her a branch. It was small, and she blinked, looking at it. In the middle a hole had been carved out, and a small piece of opal pushed inside it.   
“It's lovely, thank you guys!” She said. Colin puffed up a bit, and Pebble let him explain why

“Its Elderwood! It's got a lot of very good magical properties, like Fairy Communication, intuition, magic, healing, and even protection! And the Opal is really good as a magical booster! “

Milo smiled wider, understanding now. “You've given me a wand. “ It was a lovely surprise, and something she would definitely keep on her. Wands were very special, she had never had one before, simply using her staff to magnify her abilities if needed, but she supposed the wand had not been made for her yet. Rising, she hugged the two. “Thank you, I will treasure it.”

Satisfied with her appreciation, they went off in search of Clancy, and Milo shut her book, putting it away. The talk could wait a bit longer...she supposed. The mood was so light and she hadn't realized how much she, no, the group, had needed this boost in morale. 

The talk could wait.


	7. Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reflection on past mistakes

Milo didn't know what time it was. She rarely had any grasp of time these days, weeks? After the ceremony, everything became a wild blur of crying, yelling, and reckless behavior that ended with Oliver and Matt carrying her either to the infirmary, or the nearest pit she could be ill into. When she wasn't actively trying to destroy herself, she was just sulking around the manor, starting fights with anyone who had the misfortune of encountering her without her partner to act as a buffer. Matt seemed to have a litany of apologies for her behavior on hand, because even though everyone was technically in mourning, Milo was crossing all sorts of people she could find, trying to make anyone else feel the pain and loss she felt. And for some the barbs she threw bounced off, but not for all, and if Matt wasn't there to soften the blow, it often ended with Milo coming to bed with a busted lip or something. 

 

Not everyone cared who she was.

She didn't care who she was.  
What good was she. What good was her position, when she had made such a grave miscalculation? How was she ever going to lead? How was she ever going to be trusted to lead?

The same thoughts tormented her as she sat on the edge of the bed, Matt wiping blood off her face and knuckles silently.  
“I wish you would stop being so hard on yourself, darling..”   
She hissed at his words, or at the rag on the rather nice shiner she was sporting.  
“Someone has to be. Nobody is holding me accountable.”

Milos parents looked as though she had attacked them as she stood before them. She had asked for an audience. For a tribunal. The person on trial was her, she had asked to be punished. To be killed or outcasted, for failing to save Jenies life. Her case had been well thought out. All the signs that looking back, she had either been too busy to see, or simply just ignored, brushing her sister off as too young, even as the girl neared maturity. How she had missed all the signs that that man was bad news. How she had ignored her gut feeling even as the signs tried to beat themselves upon her head. Jenie was led astray, and lost to them, as a direct failure on Milos part. But where she had expected rage, she had gotten sadness. Comfort she did not feel she had deserved. And Safiya had made her stay by her side almost constantly until she felt sure Milo wouldn't run herself through once left alone. And Matt had stopped his studies after that, and stayed with her always. A constant shadow, a protector against herself.

“Because it wasn't your fault. Jenie was almost fully grown. She made the choices she made, you didn't lead her there.” He insisted, a replication of a conversation they had had before. Milo knew he meant well. She knew he wasn't just parroting the words her parents had said. He believed it fully. But it still set her off, the red flushing almost all color from her vision as her temper flared again. She stood up abruptly, pacing, bandage barely stuck to a gash on her cheek.   
“It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. Everybody keeps saying that as if she was not my charge. As if I hadn't stood in that room and taken her care and keeping as my personal responsibility. I failed her. She is dead because I did not do my job. But you wouldn't know what that's like. I can't seem to get anyone to kill me, And you guys won't allow me a weapon to dispose of myself, so you haven't failed your assignment of keeping me around just yet.” 

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. That she had crossed a line punching would not uncross. The force of her own words made her stop, back to the man who still knelt by their bed. She could feel him inhale, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The very anger in her veins sucked out of herself, and into him. Now she only felt regret and shame.

“Why must it always be a knife fight, every single time you open your mouth?” His voice was soft. Tight. She could hear the soft swish of the fabric of his trousers moving, as he stood up, bowl and rag in hand as he walked past her towards the door.

“Matt, I-”

“Don't.” The door shut with a click. As though he had made a conscious effort to not slam it. And Milo stood, a child scolded. Milo didn't know what time it was. She rarely had a grasp on time. But it felt like things had gone still, frozen in the moment of her indefensible comment. Her unforgivable mistake. 

It didn't even feel like she was breathing, not until the door opened and he returned. He seemed calmer, his return bringing the air back into the room, into her lungs, and before she could even make to speak he was in front of her, guiding her out of the tunic that had a rip in the arm, the trousers that had dirt on them from her being knocked to the ground, the cloth that bound her chest, and into a long tunic more suitable for sleep. She hated the gentle way he checked her injuries, guiding the linens back for her to climb under, before changing into sleepwear himself. His face was gentle, but sad, and she felt nothing but regret, knowing that even though he was here, that this was still done, and that she had done it. She knew he would not raise his hand to her, but she wished he would.

 

The next morning he was gone.


	8. Weight

The room was dark when she jolted into wakefulness. Her heart was racing and her breath was short, the book that had been in her lap falling to the floor with a resounding thud in the broken silence. She stood up, pulling her blouse open in front of a mirror to see her chest. Where she had been expecting gaping wounds, were just scars, a little lighter than her skin tone. Milo touched her own skin gently, almost disbelieving, her hands shaking. 

She was okay. She was alive.

Milo looked around the room, taking it in. It was the main room of their quarter in Sigil. She must've drifted off in the chair. 

She made her way to the rooms, quietly opening doors and counting heads, watching chests for the steady rise and fall. 

Everyone was okay. Her friends were alive, their children were also alive. She couldn't tell if Reyn was and personally wasn't very concerned about him at that moment. She walked back downstairs, picked her book up, and set it down on the table. Her heart was slowly finding a steady rhythm, the feeling of imminent danger fading away. Milo knew what she had dreamt of, even if she couldn't remember the dream. The hag. The labyrinth. They had almost not made it out. She had almost lost them all, and her own life in the process.

Milo had always been relatively ambivalent about her own life. But as someone in a place of power she had always been afraid of failing others, of others getting hurt and her being unable to help them. 

Yes, she had managed to kill the hag, but it had been a fluke, that had come at the near end of a very long drawn battle, which had come after many other battles. Which was only one win on the road for many other battles that were to come. 

They had so much more to go. They did not even know where there next rune was. They were meandering about Sigil, just sticking fingers into pies, clueless about what the next big danger to them was.

At that thought Milo felt all her energy whoosh back out of her. She sat back in the chair. Could she keep doing this? Could she keep going headfirst into danger when she had given herself two small reasons to come home? Could she keep risking her friends lives with her recklessness? Could she bear more blood on her hands, their lives, their deaths, on her shoulders?

She knew they were capable. She knew they were all able to survive, hell. Maybe they would do better without her. 

But all it would take was a miscalculation, and she would be watching them die.

And the cult was a whole separate concern. They were lying, manipulating political powers to lead the provinces to a war. They were looking for her friends, hoping to take them back to Corvale and do goodness what to them. They were wanted everywhere except Esterfey, which made Esterfey look suspect. Milo had half a mind to just go to them and give them herself. She had been the one to take the vial. The one to break it. She had also taken the orb and the cloak.   
Travelling to find these runes put her friends in constant danger of being seen and taken. Milo had power, her family the ruling house of a province, but Milos own name had earned its own whispers. Her temper, her fierceness, the fact that she would raze the lands to protect those who mattered most to her.

But would they be enough? 

Dropping her head in her hands, Milo let out a low groan. She had no answers to any questions. Her faith in herself had been so badly shaken. She needed to study more. She needed to find strength in her skills, her knowledge. Ju would have the answers she needed, or at least direction for her to go in.

She would take Pebble with her to the library, and teach her there, while also trying to learn herself. 

It wasn't much, but it was a start.


	9. Forced Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clancy receives a message meant specifically for him. With the contents taken care of, now he needs to reflect on the way it was delivered.

Clancy slumped into his room, emptying his pockets onto the small desk by his bed. He'd acquired a few more odd little objects for his collection today; a music box from a stranger and a small nub of what appeared to be their missing horn. He ran a hand through his messy hair, pushing his bangs up and out of his face. What was he supposed to do with that? Would they want it back soon, or would it be better to wait until he had the rest of it as well? He sighed and shook his head.

He started lining them up with the other oddities at the back of his desk. What was he supposed to do with any of these things? It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself these kinds of trinkets; his viol and his locket were really his only physical reminders of the past. They were easy to keep track of on the road. Now that he was settled, he had a row of odds and ends that grew with each different escapade with his team. His inventory was growing into something he couldn’t reasonably keep on his person at all times. It made him feel a little giddy.

He ran his hand down the line. A moonstone from the manor. A jar filled with teeth from the displacer beast tentacle. The mirrorless compact from Elylon. And now he had a music box.

He’d always admired music boxes, honestly. He liked to peek inside to work out how such a small instrument made such a sweet sound. It had been a while since he’d seen one, maybe since he...

He was stalling and he knew it. He could spend all the time he wanted lining up his collection at the back of his desk, but if he wanted to trance at all tonight he needed to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

He picked up the music box and sat himself on his bed. After a moment he shuffled to put his back against the wall for added security. He traced his fingers lightly over the edges of the music box, focusing on the simplistic design of it as he let the feelings come to him.

He'd seen her again. This thing had tapped into his memories, trying to give him a message. That didn’t matter anymore, it was dealt with. What he couldn’t get over was the fact that he’d seen her again, for the first time in decades. She was there, clear as day, sitting in that awful room once again with not much to pass the time but a window by the bed. How many hours had he spent there with her, telling her about the outside world? Updating her on what she was too weak to go see for herself. Playing her music and keeping her company. Using the wonderful gift of a viol to bring any brightness he could to her life.

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing bothering him. It was nice to see her again, to reassure himself he wouldn’t forget anything about her. But he’d also heard him.

A deeper, stern voice, arguing with a younger version of himself. The words were different, but the tense feeling in the air was the same. Had she really heard them so clearly? Had she heard the bickering, and the constant unease? She must have, he’d had no problem raising his voice to defend her. He winced. She had to sit there, listening to her family argue about her illness. She had to hear her own son, yelling until his throat was raw, about the care she deserved. She had to listen to her own husband firmly refuse to go out of his way to help her.

In her lowest moments, he refused to leave his work. He sat at his desk as she withered away down the hall.

Clancy clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms. Tears streamed down his face, but he ignored them for the moment. That bastard was still out there, sitting at that fucking desk. Did he even visit her grave? Did he make sure it was cared for out of a feeling of guilt, or out of social obligation? Gods, Clancy wished he could go see her without running into him. He shook his head. That was one of the consequences he'd had to accept when he left. He knew she would be taken care of, but he'd be the one to remember her properly. Even if it was from another plane.

He sat up, placing the music box on the corner of his desk for consideration as he grabbed his journal. He plopped back down and flipped through it until he found the next page. It was time to tell her what he’d been up to today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again with those feelings! I'll write him something happy soon.


	10. Axis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That ol Genetic memory. A real bitch sometimes

Milo loved the moments they got to come back to her. Even as the world seemed to be bracing for war around them, her mother and father held hope, which bled to every member of the force and the surrounding people. There was no despondency to be found. Being home again, helped Milo feel more steady in her footing with the mission her team and her were on. 

The others had not been one hundred percent on board with this detour this time, however. They had lost time, and had to catch up on it. But Milo felt it pertinent, that her family learn of the ally they had gained in the mayor of Broadshore. It was one of Milos most finest moments of diplomacy, coming forth from a place she forgot about in the face of panic. Between the new allies, and the knowledge they had gained, there had been no talking her out of it. Also, she had received word from Ollie that she had some news for them as well, which had piqued the interest of Reyn, and so, kids in tow, they had decided to take a quick trip back to Esterfey.

The kids, and Clancy, of course got swooped up in Sabras Maternal tornado, food placed before them, as well as baths and fresh clothes and anything else Sabra could imagine to give them, including a light sparring match with Colin to see what he had been learning.

Milo only paid half attention, thinking about the talk she and Reyn had had with her brother, and the Intel they had gotten from Olivine before she had headed to treat herself to a bath and some food. To her detriment, because when she snapped back into it, the little kenkou they had all grown so fond of, seemed to have left the field. Milo sighed, rising and turning to the others.a Clancy was now playing a slow song, something about whatcha say as Colin finally ‘bested’ her mother, and Charity had a book open on her lap, and Arissa seemed to be hollering moves to the teenaged boy. But no sign of Pebble. 

Milo let Charity know she was going to find her, hoping that she wouldn't find Pebble splashing in a fountain somewhere. The water still interested her. Milo thought it was adorable, but the grounds people did not share that thought.

Walking through the halls, Milo kept her ears open for the sounds of splashing water, only to freeze at what she did hear, activity, coming from behind a door that was supposed to be locked, but was now open wide. Heart in her throat, Milo rushed in, grabbing the feathered child and yanking her back out of the room, looking her over

 

“Pebble are you alright?! Why were you in that room? How did you get in that room?!?” She demanded, checking for any wounds or signs of distress. The kenkou looked at her, as if to say without saying the only distress being caused was by Milo in that moment.

“Door was open, found a pretty dagger!” Pebble said, in a voice that sounded like hers, as she presented a silver dagger with a jeweled handle like a prize.

“DON'T TOUCH THAT!” Milo snapped, snatching the weapon away. Almost as soon as the silver touched her skin, the world seemed to freeze, tilting on its axis before rushing around her. 

\----------

 

There were screams, gut wrenching screams of agony coming from inside. The house was rather imposing, one of the wealthier families. The day itself was nondescript. The skies were blue, but not very clear, and the sun seemed to be eager to hide behind the clouds. Everything seemed to be normal save for the screaming. 

 

Milo recalled what had brought her here. Jenie called her through the bond Their brother had cast. It was the only compromise she could get him to accept, in favor of letting the young girl out on her own again. Jenie was supposed to check in. She tended to check in with Milo, because she was seeing a boy…

At least, that was what Jenie had told her. The guy had seemed harmless enough, passed all the questions and tests Milo had foisted on him. So Milo kept the secret, told nobody that their sister was seeing someone. 

 

But as she stood outside the door, the screams growing more cacophonous as the seconds ticked on, she was a bit less sure she had been told the truth.

Opening the door, Milo rushed towards the noise, and almost slipped on the blood that seemed to paint the room at the end of the hallway. It did not even look like bodies. It looked like someone had just gone to the butcher and come back here with buckets. But her eyes weren't on the men and women who were seeming to shrink into themselves in crippling agony, but on the woman who was causing it. Jenie, eyes vacant of all the vibrant light of youth, dark circles making her seem as though she hadn't slept in ages. This wasn't her sister. The young woman who loved to see her, and snuck into her room to make her go outside and count stars. This was not her Jenie, but a facsimile, a shadow, a puppet. But who was pulling the strings?

Milo hadn't heard him. The man out of her sight. She hadn't seen him cast just one more spell, with one simple word, before he decided to reveal himself, free of illusion and charm. 

His face bore a deep scar, one eye gone. One hand missing. A very old human? A Half breed? But despite looking as though he had been through the wringer, he seemed to be very robust. He held himself high, a former soldier...had he been one of hers? One of theirs? She couldn't place him.

Panting, Milo touched the spot on her side that was bleeding. Jenie had gotten her when Milo tried to snap her out of whatever trance she was in, so as to free the now unconscious people from their suffering at her hands.It was deep enough that she should be concerned, but she didn't care. This man was holding her sister under some kind of spell. She thought through all the spells her grandmother had taught her the names and actions of, but seemed to be drawing a blank

All the usual cliches happened. Milo demanding to know who he was. What he wanted with her sister, what the hell was even happening in this house of horrors?

Him replying that he was the last of a family who had been killed during a battle, casualties. Caused by her brother losing control of his troupe decades earlier. He had been killing every member of that troupe, that the ones she stumbled on were the last before the vow that was keeping him here would be fulfilled and he would be able to die. That he had seen that Jenie was chafing at the bit to get out from under the thumb of her family, how she had fallen so fast for the illusion of a young guy who wanted nothing to do with her name and legacy, just her. How at first she hesitated to hurt people. How she resisted his first attempts to control her mind. How it became easier and easier the harder Milo pushed Jenie in training. How Jenie had actually committed her first kill herself, although it was not on purpose. How in the end, Jenie had given her mind over blindly.

How now he had full control of Jenie unless he chose to release her, which he wouldn't. That Milo would have to kill him. Give him death, now that his task was done. 

 

Which she made to do, dagger in hand as she lunged at the man, only for the room to suddenly go black. She couldn't see her hand in front of her face, even with her darkvision. Her blade made purchase, though. She could only feel relief for a moment. He hadn't moved to stop her.

 

‘I knew I couldn't take all of your brothers family away, but this one will have to be sufficient.’ 

His voice was in her ear, almost as if he was walking past her, and that relief turned quickly to dread as the darkness vanished as soon as it came, revealing that her dagger was going through the chest of her beloved sister. Everything froze.

“No...no no no no no..Jenie…” She let go of the blade, not pulling it out. Blood slowly was pooling at the corners of the young halflings mouth, her arms wide out. She had been protecting that man….to give him time to escape. But even as Milo seemed to stumble, any and all knowledge being washed out of her brain by the tides of panic, the blue eyes he loved seemed to regain their light, recognizing the woman in front of her.  
“Milo…”

“Jenie! Mal below I am sorry! I..I”

“Shh shh. He's gonna...bring me back…” Jenie said, almost sure. “No more bond. No more stupid...blood ties..” The young girl coughed, blood splattering on her hand, over Milos face.   
“I'll be free to be… with him” She said, before she dropped to her knees, hands gripping the handle that was keeping the blade wedged between her ribs. She hadn't seen the man drop the glamour. She hadn't seen that this man had used her. And now was discarding her

“Don't!” Milos exclamation seemed to fall silent as she watched her sister, a girl making flower crowns for the horses only to pout when they ate them. A girl who danced with the cooks, who learned to do her own linens, her beloved little sister, pull the dagger free. 

Her sister seemed confused as her blood kept spilling, slowly falling sideways to the floor. Jenies eyes casted wildly about the room, past Milo, seeking someone who was gone.

Milo dropped to her knees, trying to gather her sister into her arms, their blood mingling as she held her. 

“Jenie please…” Milo managed. Her voice managed to catch her sisters attention, blue eyes that had gone from dull to alive, beginning to lose all luster again as a bloody hand grabbed the front of her shirt. Milo would have given anything, everything, to take the fear and realization from Jenie. To give her the life she was losing as she bled out all over Milos trousers.

“Sestra...Im scared” Jenie whispered, skin paling. Milo held her. Tried to stand up, but failed, weak from blood loss and fear herself, turning her legs to mush.

“It’ll be okay. They'll find us soon. I left a trail. They're coming...you're gonna be so grounded, Jenie.” Milo said, trying to keep her sisters mind with her. 

Jenie laughed. Or...she didn't, a rackety, hoarse sound coming from her lips, before everything whoosed out of her, leaving nothing but an empty body. The room seemed to drop in temperature, and something...somewhere was making Milos ears ring. 

It only took a moment for her to recognize the noise not as ringing, but screaming. She was screaming, holding the body of her charge, her family, her sister, in her arms. She couldn't stop screaming, even as the two stalfos rose up, picking up Jenie and Milos own dropped weapons to finish the job, being directed to kill the sister of Aditya.--

“O!”

The vision seemed to flicker, her vision going black again

“Milo!” 

She knew what happened next in that vision. She wakes up in the infirmary, her mother and father by her, Grandmother examining her, and sister dead. And not just dead. Obliterated.

“MILO!”

Milo jumped, dropping the dagger. The entire Vision seemed to drop off altogether. Had Olivine yelling for her brought her out of it? That didn't make sense, and as she seemed to come back to where real time was, she realized that Pebble had used Olivines voice to try and snap her back out of the transe.

Looking in a hallway mirror, she could see the purple light seeming to fade from around her eyes, and her knees gave out beneath her, the drop to the floor ungraceful and loud. 

“Milo! “ Pebble got close, touching, checking. The next words coming from her mouth sharing Milos voice. “Are you okay?”

She was hollow. Drained. And with tears in her eyes, she just grabbed the kenkou, holding her as if that would put her back together. She could hear Pebble saying stilted comforting things, but she just sobbed, the sounds eventually drawing the attention of others, who chose to try and fetch the team, and Milos parents.


End file.
